Jay Mathews thinks Arne Duncan shouldn’t be the Secretary of Education. In fact, he looks at recent Ed Secys Bill Bennett, Rod Paige, Dick Riley, Margaret Spellings and Duncan and asks why do we have the job at all?
Their best work for kids, in my view, happened when they were NOT education secretary. So let’s abolish the office and get that talent back where it belongs, where school change really happens, in our states and cities.
Mathews may not realize it but the same thing, writ small, happens in schools everywhere. How often does this year’s superstar teacher become next year’s math or literacy coach? If this thinking applied to sports, Chase Utley would become the Phillies batting coach next year.
Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell recently got a letter from a fifth-grader at Sayre Elementary School in Lyon, Michigan asking the PhD economist what to do about the economy. Sowell could have ignored the note, or sent back a brief greeting. He had a different idea.
Instead, I replied to his parents: With American students consistently scoring near or at the bottom in international tests, I am repeatedly appalled by teachers who waste their students’ time by assigning them to write to strangers, chosen only because those strangers’ names have appeared in the media. It is of course much easier — and more “exciting,” to use a word too many educators use — to do cute little stuff like this than to take on the sober responsibility to develop in students both the knowledge and the ability to think that will enable them to form their own views on matters in both public and private life.
OK, Dr. Sowell, point taken. Maybe the assignment wasn’t particularly well thought out, but give the kid–and his teacher–a break. If you want kids to understand that writing is a means of interacting with the broader world, there’s little harm in using the power of the pen to try to engage people in positions of influence. Churlishly, Sowell is having none of it.
What earthly good would it do your son to know what economic policies I think should be followed, especially since what I think should be done will not have the slightest effect on what the government will in fact do? And why should a fifth-grader be expected to deal with questions that people with Ph.D.’s in economics have trouble wrestling with?
Maybe he should have written to Kate Gosselin instead? Frankly, if one of my 5th graders chose to write to Thomas Sowell instead of an athlete, actor or musician, I’d be pretty impressed.
I never assigned my kids the task of writing to famous people, but there were a couple of occasions when a little attention from the outside world made my 5th graders especially proud. NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein once sent my class a nice note congratulating my students for completing an ambitious reading project. And back when DFER’s Joe Williams was the education reporter for the NY Daily News, he wrote a piece inspired by letters my students wrote to the NYC Department of Education, offering to help correct a city-issued student code of conduct that was rife with misspellings and grammatical errors. In both instances, it was a thrill for the kids to get a reaction from people in the public eye. It made them feel powerful, and see that their words and work mattered. No harm in that.
Give the kids a break. Take an interest. Write a nice letter back. They’ll remember it for the rest of their lives, and you might just inspire them to greater heights.
Raging against Arne Duncan’s call to turnaround the nation’s lowest-performing schools, the chairman of the Atlanta Metro Association of Classroom Educators, John Trotter, fumed “He wants to replace everyone … except the ones who matter, the children.” The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s ed columnist Maureen Downey quotes Trotter saying the children in failing schools are the main problem.
“They are unmotivated and lazy. Yes, there are many incompetent and idiotic and mean administrators who need to go. There are even some bad teachers, but these are really rare. The problem starts with the students. What is Duncan going to do with some so-called students who act like miscreants each day?”
This is the kind thing you hear in the teacher’s lounge when someone’s having a bad day, but seldom outside, and almost never in public. Teachers have all the reason in the world to be upset by simplistic “no excuses” posturing, and complaints about ”putting the interests of adults first.” But if accurate, this is the kind of intemperate diatribe that makes it all too easy for those who would paint teachers as sandbaggers and excuse makers to point and say, “See! I told you so.”
Not smart. Not helpful.
Update: Eduwonk says, “See! I told you so.” Joanne Jacobs uses Trotter’s vitriol as a way into an Edweek essay by Richard Kahlenberg, who argues “it’s impossible to change a bad school without changing the mix of students.”
If I have three apples, and give you one, how many apples will I have? Better ask someone in the math department.
The traditional one-teacher elementary school model is giving way to a middle school format, with different teachers for reading, math, science and social studies in Palm Beach County, Florida. Some schools will have subject-specific teachers as early as kindergarten, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. Parents and teachers are reportedly ”steamed” about the plan, and are demanding to see research demonstrating the move will help improve performance.
Administrators say there are numerous benefits for the teaching model, such as morphing teachers from jacks-of-all-trades to subject-matter experts. Officials say departmentalization will help schools respond to new state standards and new versions of the FCAT beginning in 2011, resulting in higher achievement among even the most-struggling students. “They are going to have to trust that we as educators are doing what’s right for their children,” Chief Academic Officer Jeffrey Hernandez said Monday. “We are constantly reforming our schools to meet the needs of our students.”
But Robert Dow, president of the Palm Beach Classroom Teachers Association, dismisses the move as a “fad” without anything concrete to back it up. “Departmentalization?” Dow asks. “Seven syllables. Gotta be good. No research, but hey! All elementary teachers will be departmentalized whether they like it or not, whether what they do now works or not.”
I can see some benefits to the plan, not the least of which is the tendency to give short shrift to subjects like science and social studies that are not tested. That said, very young children almost certainly benefit from the security and continuity of a relationship of a single teacher.
Nevada’s public education system is a “disaster” says the state’s university chancellor, and Nevadans have no one to blame but themselves. In a remarkable and scathing “State of the System” speech ostensibly to rail against proposed cuts to the state’s education budget, James Rogers calls Nevada’s parents to account.
The state of K-16 education in Nevada is where the public–that is you out there–has allowed it to sink. Your only relationship with the education system is to ship your unprepared kids to school not with the expectation of success, but with the demand that an education system, inadequately funded, develop and/or repair children that you as a parent did not prepare for school or support while your children attended school. If you want a competent and productive education system, tell your Governor and legislators to fund it. They do what they think you want them to do. That’s why they’re called public servants. It is the public–that means you– that has created this disaster of a public education system.
It’s a blistering Jeremiad. Nevadans once hoped to see their kids go to college, but today are satisfied if their children graduate from eighth grade, Rogers says. And don’t blame educators for the state’s poor schools. The founder and owner of Sunbelt Communications Company, which owns and operates 16 NBC and FOX affiliate television stations in five western states, Rogers says when he became Nevada’s chancellor five years ago he came to the job with a sense that education was “an overweight, lazy, unproductive massive intellect, with no direction and little desire to get there fast.”
Well I have looked at the alleged inefficiencies, not only in higher education but in K through 12. The majority of educators work very hard, are much smarter than their critics, and are far more organized and efficient than their critics. If they have a shortcoming it is that they are for the most part not aggressive, mean-spirited people, but are instead caring, concerned individuals who want to teach, not fight….and the success of your children is more important than their own success.
Neither are school administrators to blame, according to Rogers. “I have looked at the administration of the education system,” he notes. ”I find them no less productive than the administrators of the television stations I own or the banks of which I have served as a board member over the last 28 years.”
The state’s Republican party has fired back saying Rogers “owes every caring parent in the state a public apology. For Chancellor Rogers to blame the failure of the government-run education system on parents is nothing short of outrageous.”
Rogers aired his speech on his Nevada TV stations. You can watch it in two parts on YouTube, Part I here, Part II here.
It’s common knowledge that President-elect Barack Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for over a decade. We’ve also read quite about about the career of Jill Biden, the wife of the future V-P, who teaches community college English in Delaware. But this almost certainly the first time that the President, his Vice-President, and their spouses all have direct experience working in education. Michelle Obama works for University of Chicago Hospitals, while Joe Biden has also taught constitutional law for many years as an adjunct professor at Widener University School of Law.
The edublogs have been brimming with advice for the President-elect in the last few days, but teacher blogger Bill Ferriter’s stands out. ”I’m a teacher and I’m tired,” he writes. More than the relentless demands of the job, he’s exhausted by the crisis mentality that attends teaching. Educating all of our children requires “something more than sounding warning bells and asking teachers to pull up their boot straps time and again,” he writes.
Subtly, the message is being sent that if teachers would work harder, America’s “educational crisis” could be solved. If only all teachers were “highly qualified,” we’d lead the world again. If only all teachers held “advanced degrees in the subjects they were teaching,” we wouldn’t fall behind China, Japan and India in engineers and scientists. If only we could recruit “our best and our brightest” to our nation’s classrooms, no child would be left behind. The responsibility for addressing each of these issues inevitably ends up on the shoulders of teachers.
While I may not agree with every one of Ferriter’s prescriptions, it’s hard to disagree with his broader theme. We’re not going to get anywhere as long as teachers are expected to bear the load alone.
If you want to know what’s really going on in the nation’s schools, hit the blogs. U.S. News’ Eddy Ramirez posts this piece looking at blogs written by, for and about teachers.
Although generally dismissed by school administrators as ‘faculty bathroom graffiti,’ teacher blogs, including those that are written anonymously, are becoming essential reading for anyone who wants to look beyond standardized test score reports to see what’s really going on in schools.
Having tried to organize a few colleagues to blog when I was teaching, I can state with confidence that the conventional wisdom among most is that blogging is a great way to scuttle your career. “Free speech protects teachers who want to blog about matters of public concern,” David Hudson, a First Amendment scholar, tells U.S. News. “But courts have ruled that schools can discipline teachers if their speech, including online postings, disrupts school operations. School officials in Florida, Ohio, and Tennessee have removed or suspended teachers for online postings on social networking sites like MySpace. Teacher unions have also warned members to use caution if they blog.”
Jay Greene wonders if school should be more like camp. At camp, Jay’s kids learn an enormous amount, including a large amount of traditional academic content. “But unlike school, the kids love it,” he notes. “Don’t get me wrong, they like school quite a bit — but they love camp. They love it even though they are made to do all sorts of challenging or sometimes unpleasant things that they rarely do at home. They have to do all of the cleaning, they serve and clear all of the meals, and they fold their own clothes. It can be broiling during the day and freezing at night. They help tend farm animals. They climb to the top of a high tower. They go for long hikes.”
How are these camps able to teach kids a lot, get them to work hard, and get the kids to love it, while schools struggle to do any of these things, Greene wonders, at a lower cost than the average public school? For starters, it’s all those young energetic counselors.
They don’t get paid very much but tend to be enthusiastic, bright, and energetic. Some will later be doctors or lawyers, but they are happy to be counselors for a few summers in the meantime. It’s easier to get talented people for low pay for a short time than for an entire career.
I very much appreciate this guest blogger opportunity. The first time I posted a comment, it was on Gerald Bracey’s blog, EDDRA. I drafted and redrafted my statement before finishing with LBJ’s lament, “where can I find a one-handed economist?” I was so proud when a reply from a famed economist arrived in my mailbox. My wisdom was not mentioned, but it was Truman’s quote, not LBJ’s, I was told.
The motto of public education today should be “Inequality. It’s our greatest product.”
Despite this ignominious introduction, I’ve come to see the blogs as a modern day Village Green. Having come to teaching at the age of forty, I had plenty of experience in academic and political battles. On the other hand, when I joined the fray in the role of a teacher, an asterisk seemed to be attached identifying me as just a teacher. I wish that teachers had more opportunity to express their practical experience in the administration and the governmental offices across the nation, but at least in the edusphere we are welcome.
The wonderful discussion in the edusphere about policy and politics needs to be balanced by the practical experience of teachers. On the other hand, education is too important to be left to the educators.
We face a paradox. If our poor children are to have a future in the global economy, we need more than incremental change. High school, as we know it, is obsolete. Inner city middle schools may be the most dysfunctional institution in America. Richard Elmore is correct. The motto of public education today should be “Inequality. It’s our greatest product.”
The views, conclusions and opinions of authors, contributors and commenters on the Core Knowledge Blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Core Knowledge Foundation.
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