Unit Cycle 5

-->

When looking over the readings to do for this unit I had decided early on that I would be interested in writing about the goals of education.  After completing all of the readings I decided to focus more on school improvement and how reform is structured.

The skills that are stressed in most public schools today are vastly unnecessary for students’ post-secondary lives.  I think it is easy to recognize that our, “ schools will surely be failures if students graduate knowing how to choose the right option from four bubbles on a multiple-choice test, but unprepared to lead fulfilling lives, to be responsible citizens, and to make good choices for themselves, their families, and our society (Ravitch, 168).”  Knowing miscellaneous facts or processes because it will be on the MME, will not help our students in college or future employment.  The amount of pressure that states and NCLB has placed on a school’s test scores have forced schools to overlook the curriculum and skills that would normally be taught, and to focus on test preparation seven months of the school year.  Most proponents of using testing, often referring to it (incorrectly) as data-driven evaluation, have little to no background in education and strive to run schools like businesses.  This approach can seem effective, getting rid of the ‘ineffective’ teachers and limiting costs.  What this approach fails to take into perspective is that schools do not produce widgets, they teach people.  Under this approach how should schools view students with diverse needs or a difference in funding? 

Ravitch recognizes that, “the most durable way to improve curriculum and instruction and to improve the conditions in which teachers work and children learn, rather than endlessly squabbling over how school systems should be organized, managed, and controlled (Ravitch, 169).”  Instead of money being given to schools to help them improve, under programs like NCLB, money is taken away the worse that schools do, which does nothing but further any problems. 

One of the problems that plagues our society the most is that, “our schools will not improve if elected officials intrude into pedagogical territory and make decisions that properly should be made by professional educators (Ravitch, 170).”  Teachers are not looked at as professionals, and teaching in general is treated as a profession that anyone can do.  Elected officials in, “Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations (Ravitch, 170).”  Until educators and others who had some experience in the education field are allowed to make decisions the shape and mold educational policies, little real improvement will be seen. 

One of the new fads in education is charter schools.  While they are not necessarily new, any news commentator or politician that seem to tout the ‘successes’ of charter schools and compare them to public schools to further show how much change is needed.  This further shows how,  “our schools cannot improve if charter schools siphon away the most motivated students and their families in the poorest communities from the regular public schools (Ravitch, 171).”  Furthermore, most charter schools require applications and can ‘screen’ their students.  While I’m not entirely sure how the discriminatory laws apply to them I’m sure they are not allowed to exclude certain groups of students, but they can certainly select only high performing students if they wish.  This would severely skew any data comparing charter and public schools, the latter, which accepts all students regardless of background or needs.  Of course none of these differences are ever discussed by those that tout charter schools’ supposed superiority.   Also as Ravitch suggests, by removing those highly motivated students from public schools, causing the loss of revenue and motivated families.

Overall educational improvement will not come by analyzing test scores or micro-managing administrators and teachers.  School reform will have the best results if we improve facilities, class sizes, buildings, and general support that the students and their families receive.  A student that has housing or medical problems, or even having enough food to eat every day, will not be able to focus on their education.  Beyond that, the students we do see on a regular basis need to start with a level playing field, public schools should not differ vastly from city to city merely because how wealthy that area is.  Until we start to address some of the problems that plague schools and address them, we will not see true progress.

Works Cited

Ravitch, D. (2010a). “What I Learned About School Reform.” In Ravitch, D. The death and life of the great American school system (pp. 1-14). New York: Perseus Book Group.

Ravitch, D. (2010b). “Lessons Learned.” In Ravitch, D. The death and life of the great American school system (pp. 223-242). New York: Perseus Book Group.

Unit 4 Post

One of the most interesting sections I read in Reese this week was, how southern journalists pointed out how ironic it was that the northern liberals called them racist.  While a certain degree of racism was certainly more prevalent in the south, the fact that African Americans rarely had the same academic opportunities in the north as whites, hardly demonstrated a more tolerant and accepting atmosphere.  The fact that a certain degree of racism was accepted and even encouraged was overlooked by even the most liberal of northerners.

The discussions about the failure rate among the poor and minorities was not that different than the discussions I hear about ‘failing’ schools and ‘good’ schools.  The inequities in retaining teachers is not a new concept for schools.  Although I do not think that teachers are promoted to better schools solely because they are ‘good teachers’ thus leaving all urban schools with ‘ineffective’ teachers, I do think that there is some self-selection among teachers for the schools they are willing to teach at.  A lot of teachers I have talked to won’t even apply to certain districts, something that never really made sense to me.

 I interviewed at a few other schools this summer and while I was debating what I wanted out of my career and whether I wanted to be recalled or to try another school, I thought back to conversations I had in undergrad with other students in the education program who mentioned that they would not want to work in an urban school.  They said it would be unnecessarily challenging and not as rewarding.   In college I wanted  to try different placements and internships, prior to the full year internship to have experience in different types of schools.  I never saw myself working in any one particular type of district but as I considered whether to leave, I found myself wanting to stay in my district.  My district is not a typical urban district, and though I feel that working there is in no way easy, it is that much more rewarding when I see my students succeed.  My school has been on the restructuring plan since failing AYP the required number of years, and it has been very gratifying to have a chance to impact what changes are made to improve the school.  My views of NCLB and AYP aside, this opportunity has been great for our staff to try to move our school in a more positive direction, with a great amount of teacher input.   

As I started writing this post I had intended to go in another direction, but this idea of teachers being sorted into public schools and shuffled based on whether they were ‘good’ is a troubling concept that I still see parts of today.  This idea that our school system is expected to improve society is a lofty expectation that Reese outlines.  It is particularly difficult when society itself has not found the solutions for the problems presented to schools.  The issue of poverty was a common theme in this weeks reading and the Great Society programs that Johnson initiated focused a great deal on improvement for various groups that are often overlooked. 

The arguments focusing on special education was particularly interesting.  It is not hard to notice that special education classes are disproportionally filled with minorities, and that this has a lot to do with the criteria used to classify students.  I’m sure today it is no where near as bad as Reese describes, but the impact is concerning.  While I don’t have any specific background in special education, many of the classes I teach are co-taught.  I have seen how this model plays out in a few different school districts.  My co-taught classes have many more students in them, usually 32-36, and my co-teacher is usually only in the room three times a week, due to obligations in the resource room.  One of my classes had sixty-eight percent of the students with IEPs.  Often our counselors would ‘track’ behavior problem students into the co-taught classes, making the combination of students particularly difficult to manage.  While teaching this class I found myself wondering who exactly was benefitting from this particular set up?  Having over 20 students with IEPs being taught by a teacher with limited special education background did not meet the students’ best interests.  I could not spend much one on one time with any of the students, which many needed.  From my perspective, this problem seems to stem from the misclassification of so many students as needing special education services, the tracking of other students who may have unique needs into co-taught classes, and not providing the general classroom teacher with enough resources to adequately meet the needs of such a diverse group of learners.

Reese, W. J. (2006). America’s public schools: From the common schools to “No Child Left Behind.” Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Unit 3 Post

I was particularly interested in the differences in opinions about the goals of education highlighted in this unit.  Everything from the length of the school year to which students should be in which school, is highlighted and debated in this unit.  The income disparities between districts, highlighted by Reese, are still very evident today.  Since I work in a low income district it is easy for me to point out the impact the lack of funding has on my school.   Everything from the age of the materials, textbooks, etc. , the appearance of the school and the technology available impact the students on a daily basis.  The students themselves know and resent the income disparity that impacts their school and while it is an avenue to discuss and explore, it is also disheartening to hear how this impacts the students. 

I also agreed with another idea that about the role of public schools, that, “(W)henever anything goes wrong in the life of the nation the public looks to the school for a remedy (Reese, 121).”  I think it is interesting that at the same time that the schools are looked to solve that nation’s problems, that they are not given the tools to do so.  When societies problems help to cause the problems seen in schools, schools are often the most criticized for them as well.  I feel like the glaring inequities in funding pointed out in the readings this week struck a chord with me.  The inequities in schools are still largely along class and racial lines.  These disparities in the last 50-100 years are still evident in many areas but rarely talked about. Reading about the overt racism in casting all immigrants as being lazy and incapable of learning, in particular, is just astounding.    One of my favorite articles from undergrad is “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, I think it does a wonderful job of deconstructing privilege and how it is often not acknowledged. 

The ideas of student centered learning that Dewey advocated, are concepts that I feel I’ve learned and strived to put into practice.  He advocates teachers to educate students as whole person, with a diverse set of needs.  Student’s interests and needs are included and on the opposite end, Cubberley advocates tracking, which we still see today in schools.  I don’t agree at all with his argument of only teaching certain material to ‘students who can go to college’.   Starting out at such a young age, telling students they aren’t capable of going on to college or are only suited for a certain type of work has such a detrimental impact.  Students need to be encouraged and nurtured, not sorted into different categories based on a test. 

I feel like the two categories of tracking and lack of adequate funding are inextricably tied.  By allowing tracking, or any more politically correct version of tracking, to exist in schools they can justify reasons for not having all students going to college or being encouraged to do so.  If students are deemed to be in the ‘non college’ track, it is seen as acceptable that ‘those students’ aren’t getting a post-secondary education.  Students that aren’t encouraged or feel that they aren’t capable of achieving, often fail to try to reverse that perception.  This happens far too often and it is disturbing to me that today, some people still believe that this is ideal.   Predictably many more of these students are in low income districts and this makes the cycle of inequality  all the more likely to continue. 

In the push for education reform, I do like that the requirements for graduation are becoming increasingly more stringent, requiring students to take more math, English, Social Studies and now two years of a foreign language.  I think this is a great direction to move in.  Students need to be prepared to interact and participated in a global society and to do that they will need to be bi- or multilingual as many other countries encourage their students to be.   At the same time, I can’t begin to see where the districts will get the money to fund that large of a language program.  Our school of 1200 has only one full time language teacher.  We have 3 other classes, two French and one German, offered per trimester.  With the current budget limitations I can’t  begin to imagine how our school would begin to meet this graduation requirement. 

Reese, W. J. (2006). America’s public schools: From the common schools to “No Child Left Behind.” Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Additional Resources

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

By Peggy McIntosh

www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf

Unit 2 Post

The readings and video this week brought out a lot of interesting questions about how society influences and structures schools.   In the video, Only a Teacher: Episode 2, many common issues sill debated today were explored.  Everything from teachers as a role model, teacher’s rights, salary, unions and seniority was explored.  I especially enjoyed watching the video this week.  These issues are still part of pretty heated discussions today and I have strong opinions on them. 

Looking at some of the comparisons with views of women as teachers brought an interesting parallel.  The law that allowed women to be let go prior to 1915 if they became secretly married, became pregnant or even wore pants seems somewhat extreme today, but I have seen how these former laws have turned into expectations in today’s society, except perhaps the regulation on pants.  When I was student teaching, a teacher only slightly older than myself, became pregnant and was not married.  While legally nothing could be done to her job-wise, she was definitely looked down upon for an occurrence that would not be mentioned in other professions.  This idea that teacher’s lives should be held under a microscope is unique to the profession.  Few professions would empower people to judge others personal lives so critically.

I was most interested in watching the section on teacher’s rights.  This is an important topic to me, in light of so much legislative action occurring recently.  The attack on teacher pay, seniority and tenure has been swift and devastating.  I agree with some that tenure saves some teachers who no longer cares about their students or tries to effectively teach them.  Any teacher can most likely name at least one of these people in their own building.  This occurs in any field, but laws are not passed for other professions to deny similar rights.  I witnessed this year a horrible teacher be removed from the classroom, with due process, within a school year.  He was given ample reviews, assistance and all of the rights that should be given to allow him to improve.  By making it ‘easier’ to remove ‘bad’ teachers, lawmakers allow unfair review processes to be used.  The series of Michigan House Bills 4625, 4626, 4627, and 4628, allows teachers to be fired after two bad reviews, which can occur on consecutive days, dismantles collective bargaining rights and effectively eliminates teacher tenure.  This full on assault on all things to do with educators has little to do with education and more to do with politics and the continual cost-saving being done at the expense of middle class workers. 

One of the most interesting debates I’ve seen in the realm of teacher’s rights in the last few years has been about salary.   As I’ve added in the additional resources, political pundits weigh in on $250,000 a year being ‘close to poverty’ yet $50,000, which is much more than beginning teachers are paid, is too much.  This notion that teachers ‘work for the taxpayer’ and thus can be criticized as such, is ridiculous.  As most other teachers, I went into the profession knowing that the salary for teachers were not fantastic, but to hear it criticized as such is infuriating. 

The other portion of the reading this week focused on the changing educational views following the common school era.  Having read quite a bit about Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois differing views on African Americans post-slavery I had read some of the arguments made about education.  Dubois describes the post-slavery problems with education as, “the larger problem of Negro education sprang up the more practical question of work, the inevitable exonomic quandary that faces a people in the transition from slavery to freedom, and especially those who make that change amid hate and prejudice, lawlessness and ruthless competition (DuBois, 42).”  The view in the south that African Americans and poor whites should not be educated was an understatement, but African Americans in particular understood that education was important.  This view that education is the key to success in any field was a view that was reiterated often in Dubois’ articles.  The respectful attitude that is portrayed toward teachers in the articles is in somewhat contrast to what is often heard today.

Works Cited

DuBois, W.E.B. (1907a). Of Booker T. Washington and others. In W.E.B. DuBois, The souls of black folk (pp. 30-42). Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co.

DuBois, W.E.B. (1907d). Of the Training of Black Men. In W.E.B. DuBois, The souls of black folk (pp. 62- 76). Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co.

Washington, B.T. (1974). 1895 Atlanta compromise speech. In L.R. Harlan (Ed.), The Booker T. Washington papers, vol. 3 (pp.583-587). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Additional Resources

http://robinoula.com/modern-education/fox-news-teachers-are-greedy-and-250000-is-practically-poverty/

Unit Cycle 1 Blog Post

-->

The common problems or disagreements between scholars and citizens about public education as seen in this week’s readings are very similar to the debates about education today: the issue of religion in schools, class division, immigration, the role and evaluation of teachers and the role of education in general, were and are still hotly debated.   If you were to type “Issues in Education” into Google you would find numerous articles written about all of these topics and more.  As Reese explains, “to offer every child, at least every white child, a common experience at school would mean huge investments in buildings, textbooks, and teacher salaries.”  Arguably, pre-Civil War Americans were (at least initially) willing to make that investment, they recognized that their population was growing at a large pace and the young generation needed funding for public schools. To properly educate children, there is a necessity for well-maintained buildings, required supplies and competent well-trained teachers, all as parts to the functioning public educational system.  I feel that the mantra of “do more with less” has become the rallying cry of public education today.  Buildings that are beyond repair are continually used to house hundreds of students while they disintegrates around them, ancient textbooks and shortages of pencils and paper are abundant and of course the ever increasing class sizes.  This last problem I experienced myself this year, having a freshmen class of 36 with 30 desks and two students sitting at my own desk. 

The discussion about the role of education is but one of many common themes that can be linked from 19^th century educational debates and today.  What is the purpose of education?  Ralph Waldo Emerson argued that the, “aim of education was to make a life, not a living (Reese 2005).”  I would argue that in the roughly hundred and fifty years since, we are still having that debate.  We have focused more on higher education actually equating to a career, but many still look to educators to instill values in our students as well.  This, in some ways, is natural and happens through the learning process itself, questioning and debating, expecting common courtesy and teaching humanitarian values, and are modeled from the very curriculum and classroom standards that are commonplace in many modern day classrooms.  Depending on your meaning of the word ‘values’ it would be nearly impossible for a modern day (secular) educator to fully fulfill this role.  While the debate over the role of religion in schools is still alive and well, for the most part schools have succeeded in separating the most glaring parts of religious influence from public schools.  In direct opposition to some like Reverend Benjamin Peers who reasoned that, “education without religion, is education without virtue”.   

The largest parallel in the readings this week that stuck me was the overall attitudes of nativism and racism that permeated many of the sources.  An educator quoted by Reese stated that, “America like ancient Rome, might fall as a “vast horde” of newcomers arrived, modern day barbarians who were “the off-scourings of Europe”, the alumni of  “her alms-houses and prisons” (Reese, 52).  I don’t have to look far to see the outcry of the modern nativists blocking every chance that immigrants have of a prosperous life in the United States.  Take for example, Jose Antonio Vargas, born in the Philippines and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, he is undocumented and explains that he, “grew up here.  This is my home.  Yet even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn’t think of me as one of its own.”  To me that is a powerful statement.  What does an immigrant do to ‘earn’ their citizenship?  Does proper documentation make you an American?  Or do your attitudes and loyalties?  As I read the article that Vargas wrote about being an undocumented citizen in the U.S. today I was struck by how little our attitudes have changed as a society on immigration.  I am always amazed that skin color and ethnicity play such a big role is the qualification of ‘good immigrants’ and ‘bad immigrants’, the desirable and undesirable.  It bears comparison with previous laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 or the Gentleman’s Agreement (Reese 2005).   For a country that is uniquely comprised of millions of immigrants, it is so reluctant to allow new ones to live here, much less educate them. 

Works Cited

Reese, W. J. (2006). America’s public schools: From the common schools to “No Child
Left Behind.” Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Vargas, Jose Antonio.  “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant”. New York Times Online.     June 22,2011.  <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.html?pagewanted=6&_r=1>