Ramon Griffin, whose article was the subject of the previous post, has written an open letter to teachers and other staff at no-excuses charter schools. He wants them to reflect on the psychological costs of certain practices and to seek to transform their schools.
Griffin writes:
“Two years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled *Colonizing the Black Natives: Reflections from a former New Orleans Charter School Dean of Students. I started the piece by asking if some charters’ practices were new forms of colonial hegemony. It is vital to add that while I was employed at the school, this thought never crossed my mind. My writings were taken by some charter management administrators and staff as an *attack* instead of an opportunity critically engage and refine, deconstruct and reconstruct practices that are doing more harm than good. This time around, I’m hoping to encourage teachers and staff at No Excuses charter schools to acknowledge what is transpiring in their schools so that we can begin to push back against these practices and transform our schools.
“I’ll start by offering a few examples of my own. When I chased young Black ladies to see if their nails were polished, or if they had added a different color streak to their hair, or when I followed young men to make sure that their hair wasn’t styled naturally, I could have been critically engaging my administrative peers on why these practices were the law at our school—and how exactly they contributed to getting students into and through college. When my school punished young people for not having items school leaders knew their families couldn’t afford, I could have been pushing back against policies that effectively punished students for being poor. When we pulled students out of their classrooms for countless hours for minor infractions even as we drilled them constantly on the importance of instruction time, we could have been taking our own advice. Or when we suspended students from school for numerous days, we could have been providing alternatives that disciplined them but kept them in school.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One sentence in particular jumped out at me:
“When my school punished young people for not having items school leaders knew their families couldn’t afford, I could have been pushing back against policies that effectively punished students for being poor.”
I much appreciate the (I am sure painful) honesty of the writer of that line, but with all due respect, I would delete one word in the latter part: “policies that punished students for being poor.”
Consider this dictionary definition of “effectively”: 1), “in such a manner as to achieve a desired result” and 2), “actually but not officially or explicitly.”
IMHO, although selling points and actual practice are very often far apart, I think that for a great many “successful” charters my version is the more telling one.
Whatever the merits of my quibble, I thank the writer for keeping it real.
😎
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Lest all ye public school teachers and administrators think that the concerns of Griffin apply only to “no excuse charters”, I plead with you to look in the mirror as all of the educational malpractices you have helped institute from educational standards and standardized testing insanities through the labeling of students through “grading” and perpetuating that those “grades” actually have any validity and realize that you too are just like the “no excuse charter” educators (sic-better said trainers)-broken and sad excuses of/for the teaching profession.
That statement is addressed to the 95% of you public school teachers and administrators who Go Along to Get Along, who put in place malpractices that are epistemologically and ontologically rife with errors, falsehoods and invalidities and that HARM ALL STUDENTS. You are as much of the problem as those “evil” “no excuse” charter folks. You who put personal expediency before justice must learn to re-examine your self and practices. Start with these thoughts:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Comte-Sponville [my additions]
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Hmm.. I agree!
It’s easy to point the finger at “no excuses” charters because they are the most obvious exemplification of how we mistreat students, especially children. But to put it bluntly, any school that is not student-centered (virtually all of them, as we stand) is going to harm students for being human.
In my blog post titled “poverty is not ‘the’ problem, it is ‘a’ problem” I point to all the ways we hurt students even in our “good” and “tolerant” schools: http://ed-detective.org/2015/12/29/poverty-is-not-the-problem-it-is-a-problem/
It’s tough to acknowledge that we are hurting students by going with the flow, but that doesn’t make it less true.
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@eddetective: [background: I teach for-lang to 2.3-6y.o.’s]
It will take me a while to work my way thro all the links at your post. But just after the first 4: this series of pedagogical lessons underscores, for me, the necessity for any teacher to have a large toolbox ready to apply to whatever group presents that day to be educated.
My larger classes are ready to sing & repeat phrases which lead to story using those phrases. But in a post-nor’easter class, when just a few show up, we do better w/hands-on activities suited to small classes– puppets & games, perhaps, supporting the same FL phrases occurring in the story.
None of this has anything at to do with competition or grades. I have have been teaching FL ([mostly Sp, some Fr] to the 2.5-6yo cohort for 15 yrs, to a cohort that includes Montessori et al private pre-sch, employee daycare (pharma & hosp) & working-class daycare.
PreK once was a place to explore creativity. Since 2010 or so, NJ Ed policy– despite its progressive PreK Learning Stds– has pushed a model of ‘approved PreK curriculum’ [there are only 4 ; the pop ones are High-Scope & CreativeCurriculum] whose effect on me has been to eliminate the opportunity for FL enrichment – in favor of more time spent on State-assessed pre-reading & pre -math curriculum [while ditching recess time, sand/water-tables, dress-up corners & practical kitchen/ workshop corners]– they barely have enough time to saqeeze in phys-Ed
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I appreciate that you are going through those links, and I see your point.
But it has more to do with competition and grades than you think. These things are about sorting the winners from the losers. What is one of the major motives behind the curriculum that is being pushed, even at your Pre-K level? If we could somehow make competition and grades/scores disappear, the corporate “reform” movement would collapse.
And when you get into the higher grades, competition and grades are what it’s all about.
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Of course you’re exactly right. I worded that poorly, I meant that my enrichment classes , & Alfie Kohn’s lessons, have nothing to do with competition and grades. The winner/loser curriculum is squeezing me out of work. It is very sad to see the chain daycares buying into this crap. They do it to be ‘certified’, and to be able to enroll kids w/state-subsidized tuition, & to have a cookie-cutter which allows them to have just two ‘real’ teachers plus a lot of low-paid staff. Many unhappy campers among their students.
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