Steven Singer holds up to daylight the “staggering naivete” of the critics of public schools. Most have never been teachers; some have never actually been inside a public school. But they have an answer: Blow everything up! Turn education over to for-profit corporations.
Singer writes (with many links):
There is a popular idea going around that public schools need to change because they’re outmoded, obsolete and passé.
While public schools certainly could do with a great deal of change to improve, this criticism is incredibly naïve.
It’s the intellectual equivalent of displaying a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses prominently on your bookshelf without actually having read it.
It’s like demanding everything you eat be gluten free without actually having celiac disease or a wheat allergy.
It’s the conceptual analogue to learning a trendy “word of the day” and trying desperately to fit it into your every conversation regardless of need or propriety.
America’s public school system is incredibly complex. And like most complex things, any criticism of it is at least partially correct.
There are ways in which the system is antiquated and could use updating. But to claim that the entire system should be scrapped in favor of a largely untested, disproven and – frankly – profit-driven model is supremely stupid.
The criticism seems to be well encapsulated in a flashy animated video from Big Picture Learning, a Rhode Island-based charter school network operating 165 schools in 25 states and nine countries. The organization has been heavily praised by the likes of former President Barack Obama and philanthrocapitalist Bill Gates.
He goes point by point through the major criticisms and refutes each one.
He starts with the absurd claim that public schools have been around a long time, so they must be obsolete. He points out that the Constitution has been around even longer, and no one suggests that we should junk. It has been amended periodically, but then so have public schools, even moreso than the Constitution.
For instance:
The criticism goes like this. The public school model was created in the Industrial Age and thus prepares students to be factory workers. All day long in public schools students follow orders and do exactly what they’re told. Today’s workers need different skills. They need creativity, the ability to communicate ideas and collaborate.
First, while it is true that the American public school system was created during the Industrial Revolution, the same thing can be said for the United States, itself. Beginning in 1760 and going until 1840, manufacturing began to dominate the western economy. Does that mean the U.S. Constitution should be scrapped? Clearly our form of government could do with a few renovations, but not by appeal to its temporal genesis, to when it was created.
Second, IS it true that America’s public schools expect students to do nothing but listen to orders and follow them to the letter?
Absolutely not.
In fact, this is exactly what teachers across the country DON’T want their students to do. We work very hard to make sure students have as much choice and ownership of lessons as possible.
We often begin by assessing what they know and what they’d like to know on a given subject. We try to connect it to their lives and experiences. We try to bring it alive and show them how vital and important it is.
Do we exclude creativity, communication and collaboration from our lessons?
Absolutely not.
In my class, creativity is a must. Students are required to write journals, creative fiction, and poetry. They draw pictures, maps, posters, advertisements. They make Keynote presentations, iMovies, audio recordings using Garage Band, create quizzes on Kahoot, etc. And they often do so in small groups where they are required to collaborate.
The idea that students are somehow all sitting in rigid rows while the teacher blabs on and on is pure fantasy. It betrays a complete ignorance of what really goes on in public schools.
And there are five more big points. He takes on each of them and demolishes the critics.
After working in a public school for almost four decades, I never considered myself a “factory worker.” What made teaching exciting for me was the different types of students I taught as an ESL teacher, the challenge of meeting students where they were and taking them to where they needed to go, and and my interest in crafting new and interesting ways to reach students. None of this was stale or dull. In addition, my school district supported teachers’ collaborative efforts, and the level of creativity and commitment of my colleagues was impressive as well. However, this was mostly before test and punish arrived. Portraying schools as factories is propaganda strategy to conger up an image of a stale, dull experience, and as such, it is convenient brainwashing tool for privateers.
What reminds me more of a factory model is depersonalized learning. Young people staring at screens in a two dimensional game of multiple choice all day without human interaction is more reminiscent of rows and rows of factory workers working on sewing machines or conveyer belts than any public school I have ever been in.
Always spot on retired teacher!
I second Mr. Swacker.
😃
Your remarks put me in an Ionesco-frame of mind: “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”
Who needs naivete when there is something so much more effective ready at hand? Just heed Mr. Michael J Petrilli, a diehard promoter and enabler of corporate education reform:
[start]
Choice brings free-market dynamics into public education, using the magic of competition to lift all boats.
[end]
Link: https://edexcellence.net/articles/the-charter-schools-movement-needs-to-stop-alienating-republicans
Hard work? A lifetime of dedication? Continuing education through one’s career in public education? C’mon folks, why waste time on facts and logic and honesty and decency when all that’s needed is a little abracadabra?
Retired teacher: thanks for keeping it real, NOT rheeal.
😎
Retired teacher, that is by far the most cogent argument against the wrongheaded edu-tech infection I’ve ever read or heard. Airtight. Code heads have been brainwashed with nonsensical falsehoods and conservative revisionist history. Thank you.
My favorite things: Books. Paper. Pens. Pencils. The printing press. Conversations. The sound of music.
“When the dog bites,
When the bee stings,
When I’m feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel
So bad.”
Republicans have a problem when they want to destroy a public good that the public likes. First they have to get the public not to like it anymore.
With public schools, they figured out a way – test and punish, turn public schools into rote learning factories and starve them of money.
It was a brilliant (and evil) strategy and I could have imagined middle class parents all over the country getting disgusted with their new test-driven public schools and demanding vouchers so they could avoid the unpleasant experience for their kids.
The one uplifting thing to come out of it was that opt out was centered in suburbs where the middle class live. Instead of saying “we demand vouchers to avoid this crappy school we used to like” parents instead said “get your test prep curriculum out of our local schools.”
They wanted to KEEP the schools and get rid of the changes. The right wingers hoped these policies would mean voters would want to get rid of the schools.
By the way, maybe some of the haters of the Democratic Party who believe in public schools might take a lesson from this.
Just like the right wing works hard to convince Americans that public schools are bad because SOME are bad and MANY can be criticized does not mean that the entire public school system should be abandoned and destroyed.
Think about how you don’t like to hear all education reformers take problematic public schools and turn that into hatred of all public schools. That’s how I feel when I hear critics of some legitimately bad things about the Democratic party act as if that means we should be able to smear the entire party and abandon it altogether.
Public schools aren’t perfect. Neither are the democrats. But there are MANY good people working in that system trying to make it better against well-funded forces trying to make you think that the entire public school system or the entire democratic party is corrupt. Don’t let them make fools out of you.
Erase history… the is the way to erase democracy, even as the GOP tries to erase our HISTORY https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/politics/tax-cuts-republicans-entitlements-medicare-social-security.html the legacy of FDR and Johnson and ThE new Deal and The great Society.
THIS MY FRIENDS IS HOW THIS CABAL of billionaires, THAT HAS TAKEN OVER THE GOVERNMENT is ERADICATING ALL THAT WENT BEFORE, from the knowledge base of an ignorant citizenry who cannot remember THE DEPRESSION, and the ways in which our past PRESIDENTS brought our people back from the brink of disaster.
AND I QUOTE FROM TODAY’S NY TIMES: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/politics/tax-cuts-republicans-entitlements-medicare-social-security.html
“As the tax cut legislation passed by the Senate early Saturday hurtles toward final approval, Republicans are preparing to use the swelling deficits made worse by the package as a rationale to pursue their long-held vision: undoing the entitlements of the New Deal and Great Society, leaving government leaner and the safety net skimpier for millions of Americans.Even if the tax cut sparks the kind of economic growth that Republicans advertise, the tax bill will increase the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years, the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation said.
And it was passed along sharply partisan lines, offering nothing to Democrats, and LEAVING THEM WITH NO OBLIGATION OR INCENTIVE TO NEGOTIATE CUTS TO MEDICARE, MEDICAID AND SOCIAL SECURITY.”
Those of us with a little knowledge of the PAST know that SOCIAL SECURITY HAS BEEN ROBBED, and is underfunded… so that when our NATIONAL BUDGET is BROKE, IN 10 years, AND IN ORDER TO PAY obligations DUE TO OTHER COUNTRIES WITH WHOM WE TRADE, they will GUT SOCIAL SECURITY.
I am not the online who is saying this. The top economists are predicting this…and Have the links.
Getting back to ERASING THE FACTS: I posted THIS HERE earlier:”THE DESTRUCTION OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN TRUTH & FALSEHOOD IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE DICTATORSHIP
“There is no history in Burma any more. You can look in the school books and the libraries. You will not find it. We are a country without a history – without a truthful history.”
… AND today, this essay about the genocide of the Rohynga ongoing in Myanmar. How do you end a horror? Erase it from the books:
MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT THIS POST -TRUTH MOMENT in America — the alternative facts manufactured by the top man in the nation. our leader has opened the door to challenging TRUTH, and NO SOCIETY SURVIVES WHEN THE DECISIONS THEY MAKE ARE BASED ON FALSEHOODS, MISINFORMATION AND BLATANT LIES!
“The destruction of the distinction between truth and falsehood is the foundation of dictatorship.’
if the oligarchs continue to control the Congress and creates the conditions for the destructions of the schools. The hidden attack on the schools will end everything. AsE.D Hirsch says , there is no democracy without shared knowledge.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Or
The grass is always greener on the other side.
The “STEM” lie in action: get kids to use computers and stop interacting with others and thus create a massive workforce willing to sit passively in front of computer screens for low-paid corporate work.
The so called reformers know exactly what they are doing. They don’t give a damn about what is going on in the actual public schools because their goal is to destroy the public schools and replace them with charter schools and vouchers, i.e., privatization. Why? Not because the public schools are failing (they aren’t), it’s because of the reformer ideology which hates unionized teachers with tenure, seniority (LIFO), decent wages, pensions and good health benefits. How dare teachers have pensions, are there not poor houses and debtors’ prisons?
Posted his article and your commentary at: https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-Staggering-Naivety-of-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_Public-Schools-171202-201.html#comment681186
The disconnect and irrationality in the privatizers’ arguments is that the jump from problems with schooling, such as the trouble schools have helping students from poor families, to the idea of privatization as a cure-all. There is no analysis of what practices of administration, or instruction, or help for families might help. That would be the logical first step. The next step would be to look at whether changes in governance make any difference to these causal factors, positive or negative. Instead, there is a faith in the magical power of more private control as always better. That faith keeps being refuted, and the refutations ignored. But even more astonishing to me is the lack of any effort to understand what actually works and doesn’t work in schools and families.
typo. I should have written “that they jump from problems with schooling…
Actually, having students sit at their seats with their hands folded reciting back to the teacher what they’ve just been “taught” is a hallmark of many of the charter schools – especially those who cater to minority children.
Anyone bought some Bitcoin lately? We do what we are told to do. We get an education (if it is provided for us as children growing up in this great US of A) and we get a job that sustains us and our families. Until it is taken away. Then we learn computers to sustain us. That is what Gates et al wants. To buy, buy, buy. But if we don’t have a job (it’s all about jobs), we can’t do that.
How many teachers are teaching how to buy Bitcoin? Because that’s what is all about. Follow the money. Or… follow your heart.
There is no such thing as “the public schools.” These differ vastly.
That is correct, Bob Shepherd. There’s no such thing. “1,2,3,4, what are we fighting for…” The future – even though we will not be here.
: )
There are 15,880 school systems . Then INSTITUTION OF PUBLIC EDCUATION was indeed real. It promoted the COMMON GOOD. it is OVER!
I am curious about when you think the institution of public education promoted the common good? It seems to me that there has been a continuous struggle to get local school districts to serve all students and states to serve all districts.
I referred to the Preamble to the Constitution which set the purpose offer government to do the things that a government must do for a citizenry to thrive.
“Our democracy requires vigorous competition between two serious and ideologically distinct parties, both of which operate in the realm of truth, see governing as an essential and ennobling responsibility, and believe that the acceptance of republican institutions and democratic values define what it is to be an American.”
I know when public schools were there in our cities, our people learned skills that allowed them to do work, to earn a living. Yes , it was not equal in the almost sixteen thousand school systems, but our immigrants and their children entered the workplace and made a place for themselves.
Now this is the story, and mind you, this is not recent…since then our middle class has almost disappeared.
And I am thinking about article 1, section 2 of the constitution.
If by “common good” you mean the interest of white male landholders, then by all means cite the constitution. That is the only group to which it was meant to apply.
This country has always, even at its very best moments, been a work in progress. This progress has not always been recognized for what it is and has often been opposed by people who sincerely believe that all change is bad. If i can quote a recent Nobel laureate:
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin
I think those words are as true today as they where when they were originally written. It is just uncomfortable that we are now the mothers and fathers that the lyrics speak about.
Ignorance and arrogance are a dangerous combination. Especially when they percolate in those with influence or power like Bill Gates or David Coleman or Campbell Brown.
Critics of the public schools have miscalculated and misjudged and misunderstood the root of the problems, the immense scale of the institution, and the inertia of a system which inherently works.
The problem is that reformers tucked safely away in their institutes, think tanks, and ivory towers cannot even conceive of the shitty lives that millions of children are living in the shadows of our cities – big and small, or in run down trailer parks and hovels hidden far away in poor rural counties across the land. They have no clue and never intended to get one. Keeping up appearances? Ha! How about keeping up a line of bullshit while they peddle their snake oil, laughing all the way to the bank.
Trying to fix these with crappy policies, senseless standards and tests, and unproven products is nothing more than a fool’s errand:
Family dysfunction
Single parent homes
Pre-natal neglect
Physical and psychological neglect, abuse, and violence
Low parental expectations
Chronic stress and trauma
Food insecurity
Eviction
Sub-standard health care
Unstructured home lives
Homelessness
Chronic absenteeism
Drug and alcohol abuse
Generational poverty
Economic hopelessness
Apathy
Mental illness
Cognitive disabilities
Severe knowledge and skill deficits
Social distractions
Unsafe and unhealthy school buildings
GOOD COMMENT. AS I HAVE SAID HERE : ”THE DESTRUCTION OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN TRUTH & FALSEHOOD IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE DICTATORSHIP”
MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT THIS POST -TRUTH MOMENT in America — the alternative facts manufactured by the top man in the nation. our leader has opened the door to challenging TRUTH, and NO SOCIETY SURVIVES WHEN THE DECISIONS THEY MAKE ARE BASED ON FALSEHOODS, MISINFORMATION AND BLATANT LIES!
Of course the proponents of charter schools are not naive but greedy. Recouping a large investment in 7 years and being able to steal district owned land and buildings is the motivation. The rest is b********t.
I am late posting to this article, but this is so true. I am into the personal development/personal growth stuff, and many of the “royalty” in this space say these kinds of things all the time (Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, etc.) . “Schools only teach compliance [false]….they haven’t changed in 100 years [false]….they teach everyone the same way [false]…”
They are successful entrepreneurs, and they seem to push this idea that everyone else should become an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs’ distinguishing trait is that they don’t follow the rules, they question authority, they aren’t compliant, etc. That’s fine and all if used for good. However, I’m sure they want their accountants, doctors, whoever builds/maintains their house and office, their pilots, etc. to be complaint. It’s like they bash the school system for being supposedly “one-size-fits-all,” but then their solution is a one-size-fits-all “let raise everyone to have their own business” curriculum. I hate to say these things about them, because I do enjoy their work, but when they start talking about education, I cringe.
As far as the “[public] schools haven’t changed in 100 years” statement; if you blindfold someone and remove the blindfold inside of a private school classroom, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
You couldn’t have said it better, Diane Ravitch (as Man has reposted your comment). And I don’t buy Bitcoins!