What does real education reform look like? Dr. Jeannette Faber, an educator in Connecticut, explains what is needed: innovation and investment.
We won’t achieve the improve t we seek by firing teachers, endless testing, or merit pay for higher scores. Genuine improvement requires positive and well/informed thinking.
She writes:
“To start, by innovation, I mean this: We do need to transform public education as we still largely work on a century-old model – the factory model. We do need to make education more innovative, creative, student centered, and constructivist – all focusing on critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. The current road of “corporate education reform” will not take us there. In fact, it will take us in the opposite direction.
By investment, I mean this: Equity in funding and resources. When public education became compulsory a century ago, education leaders vowed to make public education the great equalizer. We have failed at that for a century. Usually, wealthier students receive more funding; poor students, less. That is a betrayal of our democratic values.”
She then offers 12 resolutions to transform our schools. All rely on innovation and investment.
Why would policy makers want to change the factory model now? Has anyone seen any position papers from the CommonwealthCorporation here in MA? The State relies on them in their policy making and the Com.Corp. strongly endorses the “pipeline” of youth to “machining” jobs. It seems the “career readiness” aspect of CC is more important that “college ready”. Businesses here in MA are making ed. policy. Probably the same everywhere. Why change the factory model now?
Great thoughts, indeed. Thank you!
Point number 9 reminds me of something I wrote a while back about class sizes and how teachers should be treated.
https://davidrtayloreducation.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/new-teacher-bill-of-rights-2013/
How about this solution?
Give all of the teachers in a school tasked with teaching the freedom to:
A. Deliver instruction to multi age groups
B. Design the parameters for the groups, and movement through the groups
C. Weekly blocks of meaningful time to reflect on and improve practice as a group of educators
D. Control over our own professional development
E. Have reasonable vs. “bare bones” budgets
Teachers are generally self driven, flexible, smart people. The current climate of scripted curriculum in the US, combined with strict adherence to endless and ever increasing assessment protocols (even in kindergarten)
takes the life (joi d’vivre) and the willingness to invest out of the endeavor. Thus, causing the elimination of the three factors essential to motivation…autonomy, meaning, and purpose. This affects teachers and students…none of us are robots who signed up to follow edicts (mandates) in lockstep, a significant amount of which are wholly developmentally inappropriate.
Denise…be careful….you are making too much sense. Everything you suggest is logical and would be productive. Two thing that are contrary to the desires of the money people and politicians.
Yes, of course, as Randi Weingarten famously said: “To Innovate, Look to Those Who Educate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randi-weingarten/to-innovate-look-to-those_b_1424817.html
The problem is not that we have a paucity of information about successful methods, what is lacking is the public perception of what learning looks like, so that any charlatan with a ‘magic elixir’.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
Gates or Duncan or a Rhee or Klein, foists it on the public…. with NO evidence required and the Common Core Crap gets mandated. They monetarized education, and saved money by removing the experienced practitioners and ending their voice on what happens in their classroom.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
There is no mystery about what works with children. Randi, like so many educators who speak the truth (about what it REALLY takes to facilitate LEARNING– to enable learners to do the work) offers real METHODS THAT WORK.
The EVIDENCE is there, but in education, the wheel is forever being reinvented; ‘reform’ and ‘innovation’ become the jargon, and ‘studies’ based on small samplings in Osh Kosh, become the ‘factual basis’ for pushing unreliable methods in NY or Nevada ( where no educators are in the government agency that plans policy for education) or in one of the 15,880 school districts in 50 states.
The real National Standards research on effort-based learning, disappeared.
You have heard me say this over and over, but still not a peep from Lauren Resnick whose theory “The Principals of Learning,” was the thesis of the research.
Again , I say this here: Had I not been the NYC cohort for 2 years, I would not know that real third level research (out of Harvard and the Univ. of Pittsburg’s LRDC) actually PROVED what all successful teachers do to facilitate learning! (Notice the absence of the word ‘teaching.’)
But, The TALK goes on… what do we do? How do we innovate? And while it does, THEY wreak havoc on the defenseless practitioner… the teacher.
If anything must be changed it is the assault on the professional and the profession, so please, pay attention to what I say , here, yet again! (Sigh)
The problem is that the ‘pushers’ of this ‘education drug’, are the corporate entities and the plutocrats who have put into practice the PROCESS/template for SILENCING the voice of the actual practitioner. Diane calls them the BILLIONAIRE’S BOYS CLUB. Bill Moyers calls them the new robber barons.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/12/19/web-extra-new-robber-barons/
In an earlier show “Signs That the Dark-Money Apocalypse Is Upon Us” Moyers explains how ‘dark money’ runs the macrocosm.
The schools are the microcosm that shows how they do it; AND THEY DO IT BY ENDING THE CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES OF DUE PROCESS ( more on this if you keep reading).
http://billmoyers.com/2014/09/22/5-signs-dark-money-apocalypse-upon-us/?utm_source=General+Interest&utm_campaign=94370722aa-Midweek_0924149_24_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4ebbe6839f-94370722aa-168347829
I use the word ‘practitioner’ often, because they have successfully ‘co-opted the word ‘teacher’ and loaded it with their negative connotations. “They” (Duncan, Gates, Broad, Koch, Walton etc) made the conversation about “evaluating teaching” not promoting and SUPPORTING learning.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Learning-not-Teacher-evalu-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-111001-956.html
And, because “they” owned the media, these plutocrats (who want an ignorant public) pushed this narrative of evaluation as a solution… in an effect, sending the genuine practitioners of pedagogy out the door.
Again Moyers explains how the media is the message: http://billmoyers.com/segment/john-nichols-and-robert-mcchesney-on-big-money-big-media/œ
Moreover, the truth about the process which they used to remove ALL the teachers across the 50 states, is still a mystery to the citizens, and THIS makes it impossible to put real practitioners back in the classroom.
Look at the shenanigans in my county of Rockland. The conversation is about money and ‘evaluating teaching,’ not learning.
http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/2014/02/15/process-of-disciplining-troubled-teachers-faster-cheaper-after-major-state-reforms/5523139/
And here is how they do it, change the conversation… something I wrote years ago.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/08/subverting-the-national-conversation-a.html
NOW, ABOUT THE TEMPLATE…THE PROCESS: i.e. how Due process is suborned: THE TRUTH!
Your traffic cop signs a ticket/summons, and it stands in court, BECAUSE he has SWORN not to suborn perjury, but not the principals.
THIS IS CRUCIAL TO GRASP>>>>> Simply put: there is no SWORN statement by these administrators to support charges! You see, there is NO PENALTY FOR PERJURY when any and all administrators (principals, superintendents, chancellors) create charges OR documentation to remove a teacher. NO DUE PROCESS IN THE SCHOOLS!
PERIOD! LAWLESS! and you saw how that worked when there was no penalties for the Banksters to lie. the LIBOR folks actually said, “hey, everyone was doing it” IT being lying about the ratings.
End of story… abuse follows as night follows day.
In California’s LAUSD, it is NIGHT!
Every single teacher charged with anything, and removed from the practice, was fired. The savings to the budget of removing the top earners was enormous, and I wrote about this in a previous post here. But, the ‘take-away’ is simple to grasp. If the principal said the teacher was guilty, the law of the land which says we the people are entitled to see evidence, to offer rebuttal and to be represented but a legal rep, DID NOT EXIST!
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
I am not making this up. I have said what I tell you here, over and over, here, at Oped, and in letters to every editor, publisher and columnist at the NY Times and other newspapers….to no avail.
The truth has no resonance, but it is, nonetheless, the reality.
I experienced it in NYC, when at the apex of a stellar career, one principal spit out an allegation and, I was removed for six months, as my famous practice
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
was dismantled. Then, at a meeting, the first since I had been ‘rubberized’ I was TOLD, that I had been FOUND GUILTY.
Of what?
Well, a child said I cursed at her (in class) , and this “frightened her”. I was not given her name at this meeting, nor the names of the interviewed students, ( Students A,B, C, D, E &F) two of whom agreed with her. (stop laughing…this was the District 2 in NYC offering this alphabet soup to me.)
Yes, it is America, and I am an American, but I am also a teacher, and in this country, THAT means my supervisors can suborn perjury!
Yes, as Dan Rather (whom I knew at that times) said, “Where was the union grievance procedure; this is incredible?” I had no answer. This was 1998, and I had been blindsided
This is 16 years later, and the schools have failed, just as hospitals would fail if the PRACTITIONERS were removed, and budget considerations trumped the DOMMON GOOD.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Bonanza-Silicon-Valley-Se-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Decision_Education_Fortune_Rights-140719-301.html#comment501348
The incredulity works for them…. few believe or even KNOW of the ability of principals to invent documentation and charges, yet it is THE TEMPLATE for the process used across the country. If you don’t believe me, explain how hundreds of thousands of veteran teachers are gone.
The largest district in the country, went down… if you haven’t seen this, take the time:
or read what teachers tell at
http://endteacherabuse.org/
or how it is done in NYC
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
IT ISN’T AS IF THE REALITY IS NOT ‘OUT THERE”! My experience is common, but my practice was NOT common, and my experience BECAUSE OF MY PROVEN RECORD is unique, and THAT is why I am boring you here with it.
If my life was a play, then these ‘acts’ would reveal the theme. I am a playwright and I could never have conjured up these venal characters to walk into a classroom and thrash the teacher.
If you read on, for a Few more minutes, and if you KNOW WHO I AM,
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
then the PROCESS will be clear, and so will the malicious nature and intentions of the corrupted characters who tread upon my stage.
A few more ‘telling details about my experience, which I will explain in full when I tell my story on my own WordPress blog “Speaking As A Teacher” when I get it ready.*
Let me first explain that “verbal abuse’ is not ‘corporal punishment’ , as my hired attorney (for 25k) pointed out when the Manhattan union rep sat mute (except when he told me to ‘shut up and listen’.) It is not physical abuse, even if I had ‘cursed’ at this child in front of 30 students ; (no details of what I said were available at this reading of the superintendents “guilty letter.” (the only way I know what this 13 year old girl was saying about me, came in emails from students at the school! I kid you not!)
Yes, that is representative of the American justice system for teachers!
Moreover, NO charges and NO hearing had occurred, so the ‘guilty’ verdict, in this letter, was the product of the superintendent ALONE– who seeing no accountability for perjury, took it to the max, to send me out the door… and trash my reputation, and steal my career.
and traumatize me as a reward for my excellent service.
I know what the Bill of Rights says, and thus, I wrote this, in 2004.
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
I filed A lawsuit WHICH ended that nonsense, and I was returned to the school which I helped to make famous, but no longer was I teaching the entire seventh grade. I was put into a storeroom to ‘teach’ a few kids each period, in a pull-out program that never existed before, and with no curricula or materials… doomed to fail,– so the principal (who knew me well) could ‘document’ by incompetence. SHE DIDN’T HAVE TO SWEAR THAT HER STATEMENTS WERE TRUE.
Can you imagine the trauma I experienced, just as I finished my research with the national standards, and was the recipient of the NYSEC award? I had a book offer (Stenmore) to explain “how I did it” — enabled my students to succeed spectacularly, but this principal, a woman who took my work around the country for the Pew research, and who sang my praise (I have her letters) now shot me down, telling me, when I asked how:
“THAT was then, This is Now!”
One last detail, for now, about the head honcho FAILING WITH HER ILLEGAL LETTER, AND seeing no accountabilitY TO THE LAW OF THE LAND…. did her thing — thIs superintendent (before she left to run the San Diego schools –briefly, as they got her number fast) put out charges of incompetence!
This, for the very years when the NYS English Council (NYSEC) awarded me the EDUCATOR OF EXCELLENCE AWARD. Remember, there was AUTHENTIC evidence/evaluations of my practice, based on the observations over 2 years by Harvard and the LRDC when I was the cohort. Films and records existed BUT NOTHING DETERED HER… and there is so much more for another time, as Elaine went on a vendetta.
Look at how they do it in LAUSD and across the 50 states.
Nothing will change until the LAW comes to the educational workplace, as Lorna Stremcha champions in Montana.
http://blog.ebosswatch.com/2013/05/one-womans-legal-fight-against-workplace-bullying/
And this will not happen if the retired teachers do not STEP UP, and tell their stories of how the justice system, how due process and the grievacne was subverted to remove them…It cannot just be ME blowing the whistle.
So, yes, by all means innovate, but also ask teachers like me, and Lloyd, or Dan Geery, and others, what has already been proven to work… look at the best practice of the veterans who succeeded, and scour the real research already published in The American Educator and elsewhere, that offers EVIDENCE of what works, and how to imitate this proven success so as to enable and facilitate LEARNING by SUPPORTING the classroom practitioner!
* Look at my old site— one I put up in 2004, sometime just after the assault on me occurred:
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/_ABOUT_ME__A_TEACHER_OF_LITERACY.html
This was created before the Apple server went down and stopped the ability to add to it. I host this site as it was then, at Register.com,. It shows exactly who I was when Elaine Fink, the superintendent of District 2, and her hatchet persons, decided that I had to go. Do read:
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/The_Insane_War_on_Teachers_and_Democracy.html
Dear Susan:
Thank you Susan for not giving up on me.
It is very fishy if you did not receive my message which I write to you on Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 4 pm EST.
As per your guide, I finally send directly my message to you through your author link and a “send message” button.
Here is my message to you from the link http://www.opednews.com/populum . Please note that this link always takes over your author page link as soon as I click on contact or a button/link to send you a message.
My author page is
http://www.opednews.com/author/author501269.html
Please try a short test on send a message to me with your email address as I did the same for you, today
Here is my test message to you:
Dear Susan:
Finally, I see a button of send message to SusanLeeSchwartz. However, your author page link is replaced by hacker link as soon as I click on send message button to you.
My email address is xxxx@gmail.com If possible, pls ask Dr. Ravitch for my home address. It is more trusting from snail mail with our exchange of personal view without offending all vicious villains.
I really look forward to receiving your reply in my inbox as soon as you have time for it. Lots of respect and love for your dedication to teaching profession. May
Message has been sent successfully! From the link http://www.opednews.com/populum/messagesend.php.
Please note that THIS particular link has my registration re: username and password that your author page will not let me sign in due to NOT- RECOGNITION. Moreover, this link interferes/hides your “send message” button previously. May
Back several decades ago, our school system with a fantastic superintendent did just about EVERYTHING stated above to innovate and build a tremendous school system. I could name explicit things that were done and the impact it had on kids. We came from obscurity to be known for excellence in our area and in some things state wide and in my case got published nation wide for innovation and success.
Sadly, A Nation at Risk came out, our school board swallowed it hook line and sinker and everything went down the tubes. The many, many hours of hard work was lost. Our “educated” teachers left and we sank into that whicht was average and our school board could understand.
When you walk with giants and then are forced to endure minuscule midgets it is devastating.
That sucks!!
Great post… I had the same experience with success. We put together a middle school where the collaboration was first rate and everything was done right. The kids were at the top of the city, our school flew to the top of rankings, and boom, in came the mandates and the push to remove teachers who knew what learning looked like, and had practiced it well…
Our little utopia disappeared.
It is the way of education. If it works, it is no imitated, and theory after theory deforms that which was working.
Gordon, my post above was to ou.
Great post… I had the same experience with success. We put together a middle school where the collaboration was first rate and everything was done right. The kids were at the top of the city, our school flew to the top of rankings, and boom, in came the mandates and the push to remove teachers who knew what learning looked like, and had practiced it well…
Our little utopia disappeared.
It is the way of education. If it works, it is no imitated, and theory after theory deforms that which was working.
Reply
Hi Susan:
I just wrote you a quick note but it disappears from this threat.
There must be someone who works in this forum and does what he/she does without Dr. Ravitch acknowledges.
Your website does not show your beautiful and confident looking picture from the recent link that I receive in my inbox today, Sun, January 11, 2015, as show below:
Welcome to OpEdNews.
We’re pleased that you have signed up as a member. As a reminder, here is the login page:
http://www.opednews.com/populum
We’ve put together some tips on how to get the most out of the abilities of the OpEdNews
content management system, so you can fully take advantage of the different features it offers.
We suggest you save this email for future reference.
This link asks me many uncomfortable personal questions. Since I respect you, I try to answer as much I wrote/express in this forum. Nothing needs to be hidden.
If I do not receive your direct mail in my inbox, please consider that nothing happens for better or for worse. However, if this link is fishy, please try to investigate it and let me know in this thread. Thank you Susan. May
May, i had the problem here with my comments disappearing, so I told Diane, and she found them in the spam filter. Frankly, I am reconsidering using WordPress for my blog. I also wish to put up photos and videos, and to be able toe return and edit a post, and to offer that ability to correct print errors to people who comment. The auto-correct function here creates some very strange language, and if one does not re-read and edit before sending, the meaning of crucial sentences are lost… although as Deb (i think) pointed out, readers like us can figure out , from context, the meaning of screwed up words.
As for Oped, I am writing to the publisher and sending him your email.
I clicked on the link above and got the login page.
I clicked on my author’s page and was sent to it, and automatically logged in.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
at the top of the page is a blue button which says “send a message” to Susan Lee Schwartz. This is how many people send me their email or talk to me.
I will try to find your member’s page and message you.
as for the questions, I do not remember having to do that, and I am sure you do not have to answer them I tis NOT a scam, just a way for members to know your views, and you certainly do not have to answer any of them to set up an author’s page, as I did.
I wish I could just give you my email, here, but I do not need to be inundated with emails.
Also, I have some disappointing news. I may not be able to attend the NPE. Too bad it is not in Austin, as it was last year, because it looks as if my son will be making my grandson’s birthday celebration that day, and my granddaughter will be in a theater production, so it looks like I will be flying there. I cannot believe that the one time I make plans months in advance, something negates them..I will know in a few days, and let Diane and you know, so someone else can attend.
I was really looking forward to meeting people, and hearing their plans for rescuing public education, although I feel that the conspiracy to end public education is too powerful, and teachers have no leader to show them -across fifty states and thousands of districts — how to express their concerns and there needs, let alone their ire at being subjected to the lawless administrators who kick them out…simply because they can.
Perhaps, in the future, there will be a chance to be more than a listener, and that I can participate and add the voice of the ‘retired,’ veteran professionals. I follow and speak about the tens of thousands of ‘gone women & men’, whose experience in the classroom (facing those children/future citizens) was exactly what “THEY” (the billionaire’s boys club) did not want in the education system that “THEY” (I.e. oligarchs) were ready to control and disband.
Anyway, I will find your page.
Personally, I teach my best when NYSED holds a gun (test) to my head (career). All the stress and pressure works wonders for me. I just love the divisive school climate that has been fostered and I’m only sorry that I have a reasonable and understanding principal. I can only imagine how much better I would teach worked under a “gotcha”, micro-manager.
To NY Teacher:
You said that:”All the stress and pressure works wonders for me”. Please change career, you should take MBA, and work for trading business.
Also, you state that: ” I just love the divisive school climate that has been fostered”. Please try to live in any communist country. You will be enlightenment there, I guarantee that your sarcasm will be appreciated. Back2basic
Hi Susan:
I would love to share with you my own similar experience in dealing with authority who is Doctor in rehab hospital where I has recovered from a mild stroke within 10 days.
Nobody would imagine or believe what I endured the abuse from this malice Greek doctor and his nurses (who work under him in this public hospital, and for him at his own clinic)
To make a long story short, he ordered me to take epilepsy test. I refused his order by writing him a requested letter in which I stated:
1) Please explain pros and cons on his order on a patient who just had a stroke within 10 days.
2) Please indicate the name and dose of injection medicine for the epilepsy test.
3) As a result of his order test on a new stroke patient who never had a history of epilepsy; if this patient became mute, deaf, paralyzed because the blood clog was shattered into many pieces to travel and block all area of the brain, his licence shall be revoked for life, and his clinic plus hospital shall pay to my husband and my son 100 millions in Canadian dollars for his intentional killing me.
You can guess the result. He was so mad and wrote a letter in my patient file that stated that I was severe mentally ill certified by his friend who is psychologist in other hospital. he showed that letter to me before he pushed me out of the hospital exactly 15 days as per government rule.
I must pay $450.00 to copy my own file in order to sue him later. He was malice and removed that letter away, or destroyed it. I did not know, and I did not care.
Nurses always brought me greasy and salty food for lunch and dinner although I had high blood pressure and high cholesterol during my last 5 days. However, I ate only breakfast, and wait for my husband to bring salad to me after his work. I pack away hospital food without the nurses’ acknowledge, and then I let my husband to throw it out for raccoon.
They keep testing my blood everyday and they were surprised that my blood test was normal. From being as a straight “A” student with honor degree in Sociology, honor diploma in 3 year- electronics technology, honor in ESL teaching to be labelled as a person with severe mentally ill in just 5 days. I would be death unknowingly if I was a submitted or obeyed type of people.
Please all conscientious educators and parents unite and stand tall for civility, humanity and our public education autonomy. If we do not take care of our need and our children’s future, all business tycoons will destroy our meaningful lives and our children’s future. Back2basic
Hi Susan:
I just receive your website link in my gmail inbox. However, I do not see your picture in your website as shown in previous link in your thread from Dr. Ravitch website.
Is it something that you should be aware of? Here is the link that I had in my mail box.
Welcome to OpEdNews.
We’re pleased that you have signed up as a member. As a reminder, here is the login page:
http://www.opednews.com/populum
We’ve put together some tips on how to get the most out of the abilities of the OpEdNews
content management system, so you can fully take advantage of the different features it offers.
We suggest you save this email for future reference.
When I directly click on http://www.opednews.com/populum, it asks so many personal questions. Is that your requirement style? It sounds suspicious to my thinking.
Since I respect you, I modestly answer all basic questions that I wrote in Dr. Ravitch forum.
I look forward to receiving your reply directly to my gmail soon if it is truly you and your own website. If I do not receive your direct email into my mail box, then something is really fishy. I am sorry that some invisible hackers abuse the contact link. However we still can exchange idea through Dr. Ravitch forum. Nothing happens for better or for worse. May
The key to true reform is restructuring the learning environments. We are stuck in an antiquated system that fails to guide students to the realization of their full potential. I recently finished a book, Actualized Learning (yet to be published), that provides a detailed blueprint for doing just that. Learners should be engaged within contexts that replicate and prepare them for the key facets of their lives. They should progress flexibly and appropriately. They should be evaluated in ways that illuminate their potential. If you would like to learn more about this radical concept, I invite you to visit http://actualizedlearning.org/, https://www.facebook.com/actualizedlearning, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX6D6qthyvk, or https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/actualized-learning/x/9545377
Thanks for the thoughtful comments. Jeannette Faber. I can be reached jeannettefaber@hotmail.com