Review: The Life and Death of the Great American School System

One of the biggest problems, I’ve found, with developing a sudden interest in education policy is that there is SO MUCH information to absorb, much of it in the form of numbers and ever-changing acronyms. Luckily, for the time being, we still have libraries. Thus, I’m reading up on what’s what in American education. And posting my findings as I go…

I decided to start my investigation with Diane Ravitch’s The Life and Death of the Great American School System. This was chiefly because it had been recommended to me by my boss, who runs an organization dedicated to the Community Education model (Alas! Scholarly bias! Don’t worry, I plan to check out the other side next week). But also, no matter what side she’s on, Ravitch’s training is a historian and she has the historian’s knack for tracking ideas as they grow and change. Consequently, Life and Death is a great start for anyone  interested in the players and the ideas in today’s “Education Wars.”

The history lesson more or less starts around the publication of A Nation at Risk,” the 1983 report commissioned by Reagan’s education secretary Terrel Bell, and continues on through the No Child Left Behind era. The middle three chapters, which focus on the names and personalities of a few specific urban districts, especially Alan Bersin and Anthony Alvarado in San Diego and Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein in New York, are so repetitious that I can easily reproduce them here, in old-timey Western melodrama form:

Professional Businessman or Other Corporate Non-Educator Type:“Simple townsfolk! I have inexplicably been put in charge of your schools and now I have come to shake up the joint! I’m going to send you all to professional redevelopment and fire anyone who doesn’t agree with me!” (Twirls mustache.)

Townsfolk and Teachers Unions (all wearing sun bonnets): “We don’t like that.”

Business Type: ”STAMPEDE!”

And so on and so forth. Particularly helpful later chapters deal with the origins of the school choice and charter school movements, spell out the mandates of NCLB, and profile the top three philanthropic foundations funding American education today – the Gates, Broad and Walton Foundations. (The latter chapter – “The Billionaire Boy’s Club” – reads like the best journalistic muckraking of the 20th century: “These foundations, no matter how worthy and high-minded, are after all not public agencies…not subject to public oversight or review…The foundations demand that public schools and teachers be held accountable for performance, but they themselves are accountable to no one. If their plans fail, no sanctions are levied against them. They are bastions of unaccountable power.”)

Ravitch is particularly concerned that No Child Left Behind’s testing measures are using standardized tests in a way they were never designed to be used – that is, as the sole indicator of the academic success of a student, a teacher or a school – and that these inaccurate measures are leading to harsh sanctions. “Our schools will not improve if we value only what tests measure,” she scolds in her concluding chapter, naming such hard-to-test abilities as innovation and inquiry,  ”Not everything that matters can be quantified.” She ends with a call for a strong national curriculum and support for the institution of the neighborhood school, a “public good” that should not be left to the whims of the market. Here are some tidbits I didn’t know before this read-through:

- “Curriculum-narrowing.” Is the name of the phenomenon in which schools weaken or drop some subjects altogether to focus more on tested subjects that will affect their funding. Since No Child Left Behind tests entirely in Reading and Mathematics, almost any subject can fall victim to curriculum-narrowing: social studies seems to be the most frequent casualty.

- Though I knew the focus of NCLB was on accountability through testing, Ravitch explains exactly how the government monitors this. “Adequate Yearly Progress” or “AYP”, is a statistic left to the schools and districts to decide as long as they meet the goal of 100% proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2013-2014. Now, stop one second. Read that again. 100% PROFICIENCY BY 2013-2014. That is, in less than a year, every single public school student in America has to have a passing. And schools that can’t do this face sanctions, loss of funding, and closure. Be afraid!

-”Value-added assessment” is a statistical technique developed by William Sanders of UTennessee that purports to measure how much INDIVIDUAL teachers contribute to the gains or losses of their students’ test scores. There is a movement now calling for this technique to be used in determining teacher salaries and class assignments, as well as a call to fire the bottom 5% of teachers based on test scores. The basic idea is that, since experience level and class size makes no difference on the effectiveness of teachers in a value-added model, that the fired 5% will be replaced by fresh young professionals, such as the high-performing college graduates funded by Teach for America. There is also a movement who is calling this all complete crap that statisticians made up. Some tension between these camps, as you might imagine.

Checking my sources, I’ve found plenty of critics ready to step up against Ravitch. Most complain that she is misinterpreting studies in the interest of self-promotion, though I find it interesting that many begin their criticisms the same way that Ravitch begins her book – acknowledging that she is a former strident supporter of testing and school choice, and that she changed her mind. This excellent piece by Dana Goldstein in the Washington City Paper does a good job of summing up both the woman and her critics, and there’s a good overview of the book in its New York Times review.

But while I appreciated her views, the real benefit of Ravitch’s book for me was how it laid clear the overlap between the education policy we have today and the history of 20th century thoughts and ideas with which I was already familiar (Thanks, Indiana public school system!). Because whether the “reformers” of Ravitch’s story are overhauling the structure of an entire district, a single school, or even just the classroom of an individual teacher, they all seem to operate under the same assumption: that all the pieces of the education “machine” operate in a vacuum, are not affected by outside forces, and are interchangeable. There’s a name for that assumption – Taylorism. Scientific Management, if you’d prefer – a theory designed to maximize efficiency in factory work in the 1890s the ideas of which have percolated their way down through the corporate culture of the 20th century. Unfortunately, the US education system is not a steel mill (that’s probably fortunate, actually), and children are not identical girders to be cut to specification. Okay, now I’m caught on that image. My point is, historically, it makes no sense that this particular set of ideas would be successful in producing innovative, motivated thinkers. Point: Ravitch.

NEXT WEEK: Now that I’ve got a hold on the anti-charter folks, it’s time to check out those archenemies of theirs. Get ready for Waiting for Superman…

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First, Teach Thyself

Last week I went to a meeting about schools. By the end of it, I was convinced of one thing: It’s hopeless. Forget the children. Let’s get drunk.

A joke! I jest! Ok, technically, it was a planning meeting for a conference in San Antonio designed to teach people how the budget crisis in Texas is affecting schools; it was my first day and I was more than a little lost. After a lot of phone calls and some ‘splaining, I’d just started an internship with Save Texas Schools, an Austin based organization that’s working to…well. Guess. You might have heard about them lately, if you’re in Texas – they drew 12,000 people to their big rally at the capital last March, after the 2011 session of the state Legislature was drawn out in a special emergency session just to deal with the issue of funding education. The ‘Ledge voted nay on that particular issue  (We do have to balance our budget, after all, and not raise taxes even though the current shortfall is the direct result of a tax cut pushed through in 2006.), but STS soldiered on and plans to keep on campaigning for education funding in the state.

Even if all that passed you by, you probably still know that education is hot topic in Texas. Only a month ago Austin’s ISD made a huge, controversial decision to hand over a number of schools on the city’s East Side to a charter school agency (More or less without consulting the community the schools serve, who  are less than pleased.) Our state regularly falls to the sludgy bottom of lists ranking educational performance in the nation, and…well, insert a joke about the governor of your choice, but don’t forget that the Department of Education is one of the agencies Perry REMEMBERED about wanting to eliminate and that many of the ideas in the National No Child Left Behind Act were drawn directly from W. Bush’s testing-heavy Texas policies. Hell, if it weren’t for football and the extreme, continual, mind-bending lack of water, we might never shut up about education down here in Texas. There are a lot of factions with a lot of different ideas about it. They mostly spend their time shouting at each other. Still, most can agree on one thing. Education in Texas? The education system in America? It sucks. Especially if you’re poor. Especially if you’re not white.

This all does nothing to answer the question “Yes, but why do you CARE?” For one thing, I AM white. I am not particularly poor, especially when compared to the majority of the world and I am finished with my secondary education, a good chunk of which was undertaken at non-public institutions. I don’t have kids. I don’t have any interest in having kids in the conceivable (hah) future. This is not, it would seem, my problem. And yet. Here I am. I

It’s not just the internship. I’m reading books. I’m looking at (ugh) NUMBERS. I’m setting myself on no less a mission than to understand and change the American education system for the better. And like you, I have been wondering why exactly I would do such a thing. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. Following the Money

If modern history teaches us nothing else, it should teach us to watch very carefully in which pocket the big guy is putting his wallet. There is a LOT of money going into education these days. The Obama administration requested 1.35 billion dollars this year for their Race to the Top grants; private groups like the Gates foundation are heaping millions more into lobbying and paid research. And let’s not forget the amount of money being made FROM education – the testing industry, the text book lobby, the charter school industry and for-profit universities. All these folks may turn out to have nothing but the best intentions (and to be fair, I think most school reformers on some level genuinely want children to succeed). Still, it’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a corporation to do anything entirely without their own interests at heart. It’s good to keep an eye out, just to make sure the ultimate beneficiaries of education reform are the kids we’re supposed to be educating.

2. Of the People, By the People, For the People

I have friends who laugh at me every time I say it, but we live in a democracy. And if we truly believe that our particular system should not perish from this earth, then we need to be educating citizens who are historically and culturally literate (you see what I did there?), as well as liberally endowed with the skill of critical thinking. We need these students, who have been born into the information age, to understand where their information is coming from,  to recognize bias, to be able to come to their own conclusions based on the evidence provided and to advocate for their rights and for the future of their planet. Most importantly of all, we need them to do what we currently can NOT: to understand why it is possible to be on different sides of a difficult issue and still to value compromise enough to struggle on.

3. It’s The End of Days

Well, possibly. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting one of those pretty, heavily CGIed apocalypses where the folks with the best cheekbones survive to repopulate the planet. Still, our banking system’s screwy, our manufacturing sector’s shrunk to nil, we’re losing polar ice and continuing stubbornly to live in places where there is not enough water to support us and we can’t even agree on whether or not our cell phones are giving us brain tumors. How will we survive? Well, by producing the doctors, scientists and inventors of the future who will assumedly solve these problems, but also by educating the historians and the artists – today’s children who will ultimately be the ones who tell the stories of who we once were and who we want to be. It doesn’t matter what we do: we can’t stay on top forever. What we can do is equip future generations with the tools to endure and innovate.

 

And that, as far as I can tell, is the reasoning behind my sudden interest in education. Thus the internship. Thus the research. The next Save TX Schools rally will be at the Texas State Capital in Austin on March 24th. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

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Filed under Life Updates, Projects, Projects - Teach Thyself, Social Justice

Stella Lee’s Punch Pie

“Take an old apple pie (one from the day-old rack at the supermarket) and punch holes all over the top crust after it’s baked. Then pour on the rum or brandy, making sure it goets in all the holes. Now that’s good enough, but to make it really something, sprinkle on a little sugar (now don’t load it down) and set fire to it. That’s what you call making it prissy.”

From White Trash Cooking by Ernie Matthew Mickler.

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The Summer Dragon

Takes dogs and cows

and the old, when it can get them.

Sucks clouds like eggs, rubs the paint

off houses, scrapes them to wood

under an itchy chin.

Oh, Summer – Why?

Do you love the crickle of your dry skin so

you burn the grass down dead

and every wind hisses

like scales

over the cracked dirt?

(Riding Amtrak through small town Texas in July. If you don’t feel this way in middle of a Texas summer, then please pass me whatever it is you’re drinking.

Things passed on the train: 2 open graves. 2 black dogs hiding from the sun, 1 horse, 1 donkey, 1 mule, 5 closed liquor stores, a sign: “Welcome to Tayler Texas, Home of the Ducks!”)

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Filed under On The Move, Stuff I Write - Poetry

Monkeysticks

I am clearing my mind. I am squeezing the swollen mass of my mind into empty submission. The distractions are tinkling out of my mind and onto the floor with a noise like liquids dripping. I am wondering if I actually needed to drink the whole pot of coffee before beginning to write this blog post. I am thinking up at least five things to do before I start writing this blog post. I am ignoring all but a select few of these things. I am putting down the computer. I am urinating. I am sitting down. I am starting over.

I am clearing my mind. I am attempting to say things with words. I am thinking about this. I am wondering if this was a mistake. I am considering the hopelessness of using words to say things. I am considering lapsing into despair. For now, I am avoiding the deepest depths of despair. I am skimming only the frothy layer of despair from the very top of the deep vat of creamy, existential despair. This despair is delicious. Now I am banishing despair. I am clearing my mind of all thoughts except finishing this blog post tonight. I am trying to remember what this blog post was about. I am wondering if I actually had some idea about what this blog post was going to be about. I am shaking my head in a bemused fashion.

I am clearing my mind. I am remembering and inventing all at the same time all sorts of much easier and also more important things I could be doing with my time. I am remembering a list I made yesterday. I am remembering an idea I had yesterday for a small art project that I could have finished by next week if I gave up this nonsense and started now. I am letting my mind compose all the witty and charming things I will say tomorrow. I am allowing it to picture all the people I will use these words upon. I am seeing the looks on these people’s when I use words to convince them to love me and to pay me. I am trembling and smirking at the power of my own words. On the blog post front, I am continuing at nil.

I am clearing my mind. Also, I am becoming increasingly aware of my own fingernails. I am suspicious of the very assumption of the idea that I had an idea about some idea in the first place. I am breathing.

I am clearing my mind. I am reminding myself that all my essays end with the same little chirpy “, but…” that turns everything hopeful in the end. I am remembering how I HATE that. I am making a mental note of this: “Do not do that thing you hate.”

I am clearing my mind. I am reminding myself that this is all practice. I am remaining calm. I am clearing my mind. I am taking a five minute break. I am watching the same video of a catastrophic natural disaster over and over again. I am searching for different videos of the same scene in different angles. I am attempting to make out faces behind the windscreens of cars fleeing the disaster. I am watching myself be swept away. I am considering immeasurable distances. I am looking for anything else. I am watching a small puppy lick an ice cube. I am thinking, “What the crap?” I am small and tired. I am not clever. I am not going to be paid, AGAIN. I am sitting. I am standing.

I am clearing my mind. I am making coffee. I am sitting down again. I am clearing my mind.

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