The Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools is a broad network of groups standing up for local and community schools, linking everything from the two national teacher unions to parent and community groups. AROS this month released a report looking at the issues surrounding the privatization of local schools and the stripping of local control. "Out of Control" is worth a read, particularly as it puts the newest reformster development in context.
In the introduction, AROS reminds us that this month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, and notes that the act has been under attack as recently as the 2013 Supremes decision. But that's not the main focus of the report.
But there is a different attack on minority enfranchisement not addressed in the Voting Rights Act. Instead of barriers to the ballot box, local elected governance is being dissolved altogether.
The local governance that's being dissolved is the local elected oversight of schools, and AROS notes that these state-level take-overs of local schools "are happening almost exclusively in African American and Latino schools and districts—in many of the same communities that have experienced decades of underinvestment in their public schools and consistent attacks on their property, agency and self-determination."
The report looks at some specific instances of this sort of take-over and disenfranchisement, but the strength of the report is in how it gives context to what is going on.
School takeovers in non-wealthy, non-white neighborhoods come on the heels of decades of disinvestment. Even with Brown vs. Board of Education, most states linked school funding to local property taxes which, as the report notes, "embeds inequalities based on race and class." Poor schools exist in poor neighborhoods, where poor residents suffer from disinvestment in their neighborhoods as well as pressure to hold down costs of any relief or support, right down to fighting against unionization ("right to work" anyone?) and a higher minimum wage.
The rise of the modern charter movement meant a renewed interest in draining money out of poor communities, and financial pressures on states left more and more schools strapped for cash. The pattern was born in 1989 New Jersey-- states would not spend more money to support or improve the schools, but would instead take the districts over and give that money to private entities to run the schools instead, and in the process, wipe away all vestiges of democratic process. Twenty-nine US states now have a mechanism for a takeover.
Schools would be something done to poor black and brown citizens, not something done by them
AROS looks at the specific cases of Newark and New Orleans, and then they consider come of the implications and effects of these takeovers.
Fragmentation of political power. Local folks have no say in any aspect of the privatization. Charters answer to their own governing board, and as "recovery" and "achievement" districts spring up, even corporate control is unmanageable spread out. In Detroit, there are at least 45 separate entities running schools; in New Orleans there are 44, and nobody who is actually responsible for keeping track of all New Orleans students. The cracks through which one can fall are now huge, and the ability of local parents and voters to seek solutions from the People In Charge has been erased.
Loss of community-based institutions. In many poor communities, the school is one stable community center. But state takeover invariably involves "freeing" students from "the tyranny of geography." Saying that students should not be trapped in a particular school because of their address sounds noble, but in practice it means that the neighborhood loses one more unifying, strengthening connection (I recommend Robert Putnam's Our Children for a clear and thorough explanation of why that's a very bad idea). But in Chicago, some neighborhoods have no schools at all.
Increased segregation. The numbers are in, and charter schools exacerbate segregation. Now, frankly, local control in the hands of racist jerks can not only support segregate, but can make the effects of it far worse. But even in those cases, there is an electoral remedy. In state-run charter systems, there is no remedy at all.
Financial instability. Let me say it one more time-- if you think you can run multiple parallel school systems and maintain a total system with far more capacity than you use and do it all for the same costs as a single public system, you are a dope. And of course by the time the state steps in, the school district has already been starved of resources and needs more than simply maintenance-level support. As we've also seen repeatedly, the charters who are hired to run these schools commit to doing the job only as long as it suits them financially. On top of all that, let's consider a state like Ohio, which has exercised no educational or financial oversight over its charters, leading to a system that is laughably full of graft, corruption and incompetence. And yet, the state now wants to start taking over school districts and hiring a CEO to serve as conductor on the charter gravy train that will take the public school's place.
On top of this, it has to be said-- and AROS says it-- that this state-led destruction of democracy and school systems is happening almost exclusively in poor black and brown communities, communities that sometimes welcome the takeover because the neglect has previously been so bad, only to discover that state takeovers leave local citizens without a democratic voice or a community school for their children.
Read the whole report-- it's not too long and while it doesn't really break any new ground, it puts many of the pieces of this mess in one clear and cohesive narrative that can help you wrap your head around this huge disenfranchisement of American citizens in our poorest communities.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Why Trump Is Not Sanders
Warning: this piece is about the Presidential race and only tangentially about education. You've been warned. Also, I use a rude word repeatedly, and while many of you won't mind, my mom often reads here, and she doesn't like it when I use bad language.
There has been a tendency, both in the media and in casual conversation, for people to see a parallel or even equivalency between the runs of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. This is a mistake. The two candidates have one shared feature-- they are both benefiting from near-universal disgust with politics as usual in the US. Past that, Sanders and Trump are exact opposites.
American politics run on bullshit. Loads and loads and loads of bullshit. The Sanders candidacy is what a Presidential run would look like stripped of bullshit, without the slick, pretty candidate and the focus-group-crafted messages. The Trump campaign is what a Presidential run would look like if you cranked the bullshit up to twelve.
Regular politics are that one kid in your class-- the one who punches the kid in the next seat or throws paper wads across the room or passes abusive notes, and does it all when your back is half-turned, and then when you call him on it, shrugs and says, "What? I didn't do anything. That kid just yelped all of a sudden. I don't know why. "
Teachers are annoyed by that kid for two reasons-- one is that he's mean and disruptive and rotten to the other students, and the other is that the subtext for his denials is some version of, "I'm pretty sure you're a frickin' idiot, and you're way too stupid to know what I'm doing."
But Trump. Trump just turns around, punches the kid in the next desk right in the face, turns to you, the teacher, and just shrugs and smiles, like "What are you gonna do, you know?" And then he says, "What? I didn't do anything? I think maybe he ran into my fist." Still smiling, like this is all kind of fun. And you can't help it-- he's such a transparent asshole that you're charmed.
When someone else is the class tries the sneaky punch routine, Trump gladly narcs on him-- "Hey, teacher!! Jebby just punched Floyd in the arm!" Catch someone in a lie? Trump's glad to tattle because when Trump wants to lie, it's a big, fat, indefensible lie, so baldfaced that it invites applause for its audacity.
Conventional politicians play a game in which they lie, pretend, ignore their own history, attack various groups of Americans, and lie some more, but they do it all in a gutless over-thought manner, with the ultimately goal of doing all those things without looking like they're doing all those things. But Trump lies, pretends, ignores his own history, attacks various groups of Americans, and lies some more-- and never pretends to be doing anything else. That's why the other kids on the GOP playground can't call him out-- because he's not doing anything that they don't do. He's just doing it in plain sight, without artifice. Conventional politicians try to convince the public that their bullshit is caviar and goose pate; Trump just backs the truck up and makes Bullshit Mountain with the confidence of a man who knows that this is what the game is really about.
When Trump criticizes other politicians because they "can't get anything done," he's criticizing their lack of guts, their lack of understanding about how a real salesman plays the baldfaced bullshit game. They want to play at playing the game while looking like they're not playing the game. Trump is playing the game, full on.
That's the difference from Bernie Sanders, who is not playing a game at all, but is simply trying to communicate a message. Trump, who is playing a game, has no message to communicate. Sanders is revealing the hollowness of the Presidential race by showing what substance looks like. Trump is revealing the hollowness by turning it into performance art, an exaggerated cartoon candidacy, a show that turns to the other candidates and says, "Look, if you really want to play this bullshit game, let's really do it, and not just half-ass it like you bums are used to doing. If you want to be a bullshit slinging, woman-bashing, minority-abusing, ethically rudderless asshat, let me show you how it's really done."
How far Trump's show can go is a mystery. The most entertaining alternative would be that he actually breaks the GOP, and we see the emergence of a real third party founded on reclaiming the values that the GOP once stood for. That's probably as unlikely as Sanders reclaiming the Democratic party from the corporate overlords who have commandeered it, but this feels like a year in which surprising things could happen.
There has been a tendency, both in the media and in casual conversation, for people to see a parallel or even equivalency between the runs of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. This is a mistake. The two candidates have one shared feature-- they are both benefiting from near-universal disgust with politics as usual in the US. Past that, Sanders and Trump are exact opposites.
American politics run on bullshit. Loads and loads and loads of bullshit. The Sanders candidacy is what a Presidential run would look like stripped of bullshit, without the slick, pretty candidate and the focus-group-crafted messages. The Trump campaign is what a Presidential run would look like if you cranked the bullshit up to twelve.
Regular politics are that one kid in your class-- the one who punches the kid in the next seat or throws paper wads across the room or passes abusive notes, and does it all when your back is half-turned, and then when you call him on it, shrugs and says, "What? I didn't do anything. That kid just yelped all of a sudden. I don't know why. "
Teachers are annoyed by that kid for two reasons-- one is that he's mean and disruptive and rotten to the other students, and the other is that the subtext for his denials is some version of, "I'm pretty sure you're a frickin' idiot, and you're way too stupid to know what I'm doing."
But Trump. Trump just turns around, punches the kid in the next desk right in the face, turns to you, the teacher, and just shrugs and smiles, like "What are you gonna do, you know?" And then he says, "What? I didn't do anything? I think maybe he ran into my fist." Still smiling, like this is all kind of fun. And you can't help it-- he's such a transparent asshole that you're charmed.
When someone else is the class tries the sneaky punch routine, Trump gladly narcs on him-- "Hey, teacher!! Jebby just punched Floyd in the arm!" Catch someone in a lie? Trump's glad to tattle because when Trump wants to lie, it's a big, fat, indefensible lie, so baldfaced that it invites applause for its audacity.
Conventional politicians play a game in which they lie, pretend, ignore their own history, attack various groups of Americans, and lie some more, but they do it all in a gutless over-thought manner, with the ultimately goal of doing all those things without looking like they're doing all those things. But Trump lies, pretends, ignores his own history, attacks various groups of Americans, and lies some more-- and never pretends to be doing anything else. That's why the other kids on the GOP playground can't call him out-- because he's not doing anything that they don't do. He's just doing it in plain sight, without artifice. Conventional politicians try to convince the public that their bullshit is caviar and goose pate; Trump just backs the truck up and makes Bullshit Mountain with the confidence of a man who knows that this is what the game is really about.
When Trump criticizes other politicians because they "can't get anything done," he's criticizing their lack of guts, their lack of understanding about how a real salesman plays the baldfaced bullshit game. They want to play at playing the game while looking like they're not playing the game. Trump is playing the game, full on.
That's the difference from Bernie Sanders, who is not playing a game at all, but is simply trying to communicate a message. Trump, who is playing a game, has no message to communicate. Sanders is revealing the hollowness of the Presidential race by showing what substance looks like. Trump is revealing the hollowness by turning it into performance art, an exaggerated cartoon candidacy, a show that turns to the other candidates and says, "Look, if you really want to play this bullshit game, let's really do it, and not just half-ass it like you bums are used to doing. If you want to be a bullshit slinging, woman-bashing, minority-abusing, ethically rudderless asshat, let me show you how it's really done."
How far Trump's show can go is a mystery. The most entertaining alternative would be that he actually breaks the GOP, and we see the emergence of a real third party founded on reclaiming the values that the GOP once stood for. That's probably as unlikely as Sanders reclaiming the Democratic party from the corporate overlords who have commandeered it, but this feels like a year in which surprising things could happen.
ICYMI: This Week's Readings from the Edusphere
Some reading from this week in the edusphere.
13 Years of Dress Rehearsal
Chris Thinnes ran a back-to-school parent's night speech by Rachel Thinnes that is a great reminder that school is not just about students getting ready to live their lives -- their lives are going on right now. She also references Excellent Sheep, which is always bonus points as far as I'm concerned.
EdTPA and TFA Are Two Sides of the Same Coin
Fred Klonsky spent a chunk of his week fending off feverish defenders of Pearson's teacher certification baloneyfest, EdTPA. Klonsky wrote several good take-downs of the program, but this one put it in the context of another favorite reformster program.
10 Years of Corporate Media Celebrating Disaster
You'll need a strong stomach for this look back at some of the decades most notable cheerleading for death and destruction in New Orleans. Because who cares how many people have to die, neighborhoods have to be destroyed, and citizens have to be permanently displaced if, when it's all done, privatizers can make some money and test scores go up, a little, in some places, for some people.
Message from Bethlehem Superintendent
The superintendent of Bethlehem Area Schools in PA wrote in the local paper a piece to show that he gets it, and that he regrets "a different world we are now in where a teacher potentially risks a negative evaluation because she is committed to helping her students develop their passions, gifts and talents."
NC Teachers Being 'Voluntarily Exploited'
Brief but powerful profile of three North Carolina teachers and how they make it work. These ladies are inspirational-- wait till you read about how one turns the experience of not being able to buy groceries into a growth experience for her own practice.
13 Years of Dress Rehearsal
Chris Thinnes ran a back-to-school parent's night speech by Rachel Thinnes that is a great reminder that school is not just about students getting ready to live their lives -- their lives are going on right now. She also references Excellent Sheep, which is always bonus points as far as I'm concerned.
EdTPA and TFA Are Two Sides of the Same Coin
Fred Klonsky spent a chunk of his week fending off feverish defenders of Pearson's teacher certification baloneyfest, EdTPA. Klonsky wrote several good take-downs of the program, but this one put it in the context of another favorite reformster program.
10 Years of Corporate Media Celebrating Disaster
You'll need a strong stomach for this look back at some of the decades most notable cheerleading for death and destruction in New Orleans. Because who cares how many people have to die, neighborhoods have to be destroyed, and citizens have to be permanently displaced if, when it's all done, privatizers can make some money and test scores go up, a little, in some places, for some people.
Message from Bethlehem Superintendent
The superintendent of Bethlehem Area Schools in PA wrote in the local paper a piece to show that he gets it, and that he regrets "a different world we are now in where a teacher potentially risks a negative evaluation because she is committed to helping her students develop their passions, gifts and talents."
NC Teachers Being 'Voluntarily Exploited'
Brief but powerful profile of three North Carolina teachers and how they make it work. These ladies are inspirational-- wait till you read about how one turns the experience of not being able to buy groceries into a growth experience for her own practice.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Trib Writer Tries To Spank Dyett Hunger Strike
Eric Zorn decided to just wade on into the Dyett High Hunger Strike yesterday with a piece that is as stunning as it is ill-informed. But it underlines the problem of effectively organizing for a cause.
Zorn apparently didn't do any more reading on the hunger strike except to learn that there is one, and that it has something to do with a high school. Apparently some folks have tried to convince Zorn that the strike "requires coverage of their cause, which is the establishment of a particular type of new school in the Dyett High School building in Washington Park."
But Zorn says he's turned off by the tactics, and goes on to equate a hunger strike with holding hostages and/or slow-motion suicide. But we don't negotiate with hostage takers, and suicide is, I guess, rude. And what Zorn is really saying is that he doesn't believe that it's that big a deal, not even to the hunger strikers:
Would today's protesters rather die than live in a world without the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology Community High School, the academy they want CPS to establish?
The piece is spectacular in its lack of nuance or understanding. He talks about the proposed high school as if they want it established from scratch, and not as if they are proposing a way for the community to hold onto its last open-enrollment, community-based school. A school that they already had. A school that CPS is threatening to either hand over to outside interests or to simply close entirely, which sets the stage for the kind of gentrification that is already an issue for Chicago.
But beyond Zorn's unwillingness to do even cursory homework because, I guess, he doesn't care for protestors' tone, is the same old question I always have for these types of folks-- what does he think the protestors should do instead?
Should they peacefully and professionally develop a positive alternative for the CPS to show how the community school could be maintained and improved? They've done that. Should they partner with respectable community organizations to show just how serious and solid the plan is? They've done that. Should they repeatedly approach the authorities through the appropriate channels with the appropriate paperwork? They've done that.
What else would he like them to do?
If this were a violent protest, we know that everyone would be tsk-tsking the Dyett supporters for not doing things The Right Way. Don't be so violent. Don't take such a tone. When you are so confrontational, you just hurt your own cause.
I can't say this hard enough: Dyett supporters have done everything right, everything that could be asked of people who have been trying to get their voices heard for years and years-- unless what critics like Zorn are really suggesting that Dyett supporters should voice their opinions in such a way that they can be more easily ignored, and that anything they do that makes any kind of noise at all, attracts any sort of attention is just not okay. They should be not seen, not heard, and happy with whatever CPS decides to do to them, their school, their community.
What the hell kind of choice is that??
Zorn has established himself as a fan of staying in place and not bucking the system in the past. Back in July, he wrote a piece in response to Sandra Bland's arrest and death, and while the piece is bluntly critical of the police officer and minces no words about how wrong he was every step of the way, he still somehow lands on this conclusion:
The lesson here is that you must always defer meekly to the police. Even when they're acting like bullies, goading you or issuing you preposterous orders like to put out your cigarette as you sit in your own car, don't challenge their authority. As I reminded my kids in the wake of this story, things will never go better for you if you argue with police officers. Comply. And if you feel your rights are being violated, take it up later with a judge.
So perhaps the message of Zorn and others is that the Dyett Twelve should defer meekly to bullies. That's lousy advice, particularly given how relatively meek and non-confrontational the Dyett protesters have actually been. And people in not-wealthy neighborhoods with not-white skins have been called upon to defer meekly far too many times.
Zorn and those who agree with him are just plain wrong, and out of line, and lazy. Mr. Zorn, I'm an English teacher in Pennsylvania-- how is it that I know more about the situation at Dyett than a journalist in Chicago? Shame on you, sir. Here's a quick link to sources with which you can begin to educate yourself and then do a proper job writing about the issues involved.
Zorn apparently didn't do any more reading on the hunger strike except to learn that there is one, and that it has something to do with a high school. Apparently some folks have tried to convince Zorn that the strike "requires coverage of their cause, which is the establishment of a particular type of new school in the Dyett High School building in Washington Park."
But Zorn says he's turned off by the tactics, and goes on to equate a hunger strike with holding hostages and/or slow-motion suicide. But we don't negotiate with hostage takers, and suicide is, I guess, rude. And what Zorn is really saying is that he doesn't believe that it's that big a deal, not even to the hunger strikers:
Would today's protesters rather die than live in a world without the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology Community High School, the academy they want CPS to establish?
The piece is spectacular in its lack of nuance or understanding. He talks about the proposed high school as if they want it established from scratch, and not as if they are proposing a way for the community to hold onto its last open-enrollment, community-based school. A school that they already had. A school that CPS is threatening to either hand over to outside interests or to simply close entirely, which sets the stage for the kind of gentrification that is already an issue for Chicago.
But beyond Zorn's unwillingness to do even cursory homework because, I guess, he doesn't care for protestors' tone, is the same old question I always have for these types of folks-- what does he think the protestors should do instead?
Should they peacefully and professionally develop a positive alternative for the CPS to show how the community school could be maintained and improved? They've done that. Should they partner with respectable community organizations to show just how serious and solid the plan is? They've done that. Should they repeatedly approach the authorities through the appropriate channels with the appropriate paperwork? They've done that.
What else would he like them to do?
If this were a violent protest, we know that everyone would be tsk-tsking the Dyett supporters for not doing things The Right Way. Don't be so violent. Don't take such a tone. When you are so confrontational, you just hurt your own cause.
I can't say this hard enough: Dyett supporters have done everything right, everything that could be asked of people who have been trying to get their voices heard for years and years-- unless what critics like Zorn are really suggesting that Dyett supporters should voice their opinions in such a way that they can be more easily ignored, and that anything they do that makes any kind of noise at all, attracts any sort of attention is just not okay. They should be not seen, not heard, and happy with whatever CPS decides to do to them, their school, their community.
What the hell kind of choice is that??
Zorn has established himself as a fan of staying in place and not bucking the system in the past. Back in July, he wrote a piece in response to Sandra Bland's arrest and death, and while the piece is bluntly critical of the police officer and minces no words about how wrong he was every step of the way, he still somehow lands on this conclusion:
The lesson here is that you must always defer meekly to the police. Even when they're acting like bullies, goading you or issuing you preposterous orders like to put out your cigarette as you sit in your own car, don't challenge their authority. As I reminded my kids in the wake of this story, things will never go better for you if you argue with police officers. Comply. And if you feel your rights are being violated, take it up later with a judge.
So perhaps the message of Zorn and others is that the Dyett Twelve should defer meekly to bullies. That's lousy advice, particularly given how relatively meek and non-confrontational the Dyett protesters have actually been. And people in not-wealthy neighborhoods with not-white skins have been called upon to defer meekly far too many times.
Zorn and those who agree with him are just plain wrong, and out of line, and lazy. Mr. Zorn, I'm an English teacher in Pennsylvania-- how is it that I know more about the situation at Dyett than a journalist in Chicago? Shame on you, sir. Here's a quick link to sources with which you can begin to educate yourself and then do a proper job writing about the issues involved.
PA: Districts Now Short $1.18 Billion
Last Thursday, schools started to feel the impact of our elected legislators' perennial inability to get their job done.
Thursday was the day that $1.18 billion-with-a-b in subsidy payments were supposed to go out to school districts. But they can't. Because Pennsylvania still doesn't have a budget. The Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officers surveyed 171 districts and learned that 83% of those will be dipping into their reserve funds. 60% may delay vendor payments, 53% may delay maintenance work, and 29% may put off filling positions. Other districts are looking at the necessity of borrowing money, which means that for some districts, Harrisburg's failure will translate into real dollar-amount costs for local taxpayers.
Of course, the most notable impact is being felt in Chester Uplands School District, where the lack of a payment Thursday meant that the district could not meet their payroll. District teachers and staff voted to work without pay as long as "individually possible."
Does Pennsylvania do this a lot? Well, "Pennsylvania Budget Impasses" has its own Wikipedia page. In the last decade, we've been stuck in this place five times (2007, 2008, 2009, 2014, and 2015). Back in 2003, the fight dragged on until December.
The process is always grueling and tense, because those of us who are mere citizens in the commonwealth never know what the heck is going on (unless we want to believe the various battling press releases that emerge from the back rooms of Harrisburg). We know the basic set-up this time; Tom Wolf wanted to write a budget as if he had won an overwhelming victory that signaled voters' utter repudiation of the Tom Corbett budgetary approach, and Pennsylvania GOP legislators would like to budget as if Tom Corbett were still governor. According to a recent poll, 54% of Pennsylvanians blame the legislators for the impasse, and 29% blame Wolf.
Meanwhile, 100% of public schools are facing effects of the government's halt. And more subsidy payments are due to schools in September, October, November and December.
Our legislators have the second-highest pay in the country, and Pennsylvania has the second-largest legislature in the country, which means we have the most expensive legislature in America-- and that's before you figure in how much this budgetary blockade is costing us. Safe to say that we are not getting very good bang for our buck. Folks have many suggestions. Dock the legislatures pay. Shut down the capital cafeteria and get Harrisburg restaurants to refuse to serve our elected representatives until they get their damned job done. Cut their pay $5K for every day they're late with the budget.
Pennsylvania's education funding has huge problems. This is not helping. We can only hope that Harrisburg gets its act together before it has to miss its next education payment.In the meantime, if you're a Pennsylvanian, I suggest you find your elected representative, contact him, and tell him to do his job.
Thursday was the day that $1.18 billion-with-a-b in subsidy payments were supposed to go out to school districts. But they can't. Because Pennsylvania still doesn't have a budget. The Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officers surveyed 171 districts and learned that 83% of those will be dipping into their reserve funds. 60% may delay vendor payments, 53% may delay maintenance work, and 29% may put off filling positions. Other districts are looking at the necessity of borrowing money, which means that for some districts, Harrisburg's failure will translate into real dollar-amount costs for local taxpayers.
Of course, the most notable impact is being felt in Chester Uplands School District, where the lack of a payment Thursday meant that the district could not meet their payroll. District teachers and staff voted to work without pay as long as "individually possible."
Does Pennsylvania do this a lot? Well, "Pennsylvania Budget Impasses" has its own Wikipedia page. In the last decade, we've been stuck in this place five times (2007, 2008, 2009, 2014, and 2015). Back in 2003, the fight dragged on until December.
The process is always grueling and tense, because those of us who are mere citizens in the commonwealth never know what the heck is going on (unless we want to believe the various battling press releases that emerge from the back rooms of Harrisburg). We know the basic set-up this time; Tom Wolf wanted to write a budget as if he had won an overwhelming victory that signaled voters' utter repudiation of the Tom Corbett budgetary approach, and Pennsylvania GOP legislators would like to budget as if Tom Corbett were still governor. According to a recent poll, 54% of Pennsylvanians blame the legislators for the impasse, and 29% blame Wolf.
Meanwhile, 100% of public schools are facing effects of the government's halt. And more subsidy payments are due to schools in September, October, November and December.
Our legislators have the second-highest pay in the country, and Pennsylvania has the second-largest legislature in the country, which means we have the most expensive legislature in America-- and that's before you figure in how much this budgetary blockade is costing us. Safe to say that we are not getting very good bang for our buck. Folks have many suggestions. Dock the legislatures pay. Shut down the capital cafeteria and get Harrisburg restaurants to refuse to serve our elected representatives until they get their damned job done. Cut their pay $5K for every day they're late with the budget.
Pennsylvania's education funding has huge problems. This is not helping. We can only hope that Harrisburg gets its act together before it has to miss its next education payment.In the meantime, if you're a Pennsylvanian, I suggest you find your elected representative, contact him, and tell him to do his job.
Can Tech Fix Teacher Shortage?
If you don't have a lot of time to read right now, I'll cut to the chase.
No.
The topic is being heavily discussed because, for many folks, "shortage" is spelled o-p-p-o-r-t-u-n-i-t-y. As in, golden opportunity to push TFA, alternative certification, and technology in (or instead of) the classroom. As the teacher "shortage" story has continued to bounce around the edusphere, some writers have stepped up to talk about how technology and blended learning could help solve the problem.
First off, we don't really have a teacher shortage. We have a shortage of employers offering the working conditions necessary to attract people to the teaching profession.
The worst pockets of unfilled teaching positions are not marked by leaders saying, "How can we attract and retain more high quality teachers?" Instead, they're asking, "Where can we find people who will settle for working under the conditions that we're offering?"
There are plenty of creative answers to that question, including fast track programs, lots of alternative certification programs, and even proposals that some classes be taught by people who have only a high school diploma. But of course the people who are most willing to fill teaching jobs under even the lowest of conditions are not actual people at all, but pieces of technology.
But there are several large obstacles to using technology to plug the teacher "shortage." Here we go.
Tech Is More Expensive Than You Think
Remember when we were all excited because instead of paper books, we were going to use electronic versions of texts. Instead of having to buy new copies of High School Handbook of Tedious Grammar every five-to-ten years at a cost of Good God They Want HOW Much For This Dollars, we would have awesome digital copies that would never wear out. It was going to save the district millions.
But then it turned out that the company was going to make us license the e-copies of the text every three years for You Can't Be Serious Dollars, and the savings from going to to e-books were going to be somewhere between Modest and Non-existent. And that was before it finally sank in that netbooks or chromebooks or tablets or whatever we were using would only survive a few years before either needing to be replaced or being abandoned by the company that provided them. So actual savings turned out to be negative dollars.
Oops! Too Late!
Staying ahead of the technology curve is hard enough for people who work in that sector. But in my school, we do our classroom budgets almost a full year before we actually use the stuff we're budgeting for. I can look around right now, do my market research, find out where my students are in terms of apps and programs, and design something really cool for next year, and it will be absolutely quaint by the time next September rolls around. High school administrators may think that getting laptops in their students hands will be a big step forward; meanwhile, the students are trying to remember how to use this odd kind of device that they haven't touched since they were five.
It's Only Technology
The other mistake that oldsters make over and over and over again is to miscalculate the Wow Factor of computer tech. As repeatedly noted, our students are digital natives, and that means that a tablet and a computer and a smart phone are all about as novel and Wow-worthy as books or trees. I still meet people who think that a worksheet will be compelling to students because it's now a drill program on a computer. Nope. Not even a little. Doing that drill does allow the teacher to collect and crunch data is new, speedy, useful ways. But for the student, it's just same-old, same-old drill.
The other mistake oldsters (digital immigrants?) make when considering digital natives is to assume the digital natives are deeply interested in and knowledgeable about computer tech. Well, fellow oldster-- let me ask you this: when we were young, how many of us got really interested in the processes of printing and bookbinding? That's right-- almost none. We just used the tools in front of us without thinking too much about what and how they worked. My students know very little about computer tech except how to use the apps they like to use. Everything else requires my instruction, explanation, incentivization and general, you know, teaching in order for them to use it successfully.
There's No Successful Path To Follow
Rocketship Academy bet its entire existence on blended learning, on a model that set students in front of computers and let them ride that technobooster to the stars. They've had almost a decade to show us all how it's done. Instead, last year they had to scale back their aspirations. They threw everything they had at the idea, and it has just bounced off the wall and landed with a thud.
In short, if there's a really good scaleable way to use technology to reduce teacher staffing, nobody has been able to demonstrate it yet. KIPP and Rocketship have both demonstrated that computer-aided test prep works well and can be done with fewer meat widgets (huge hat tip to @hackerhuntress for that replacement for "human resources"), but there are no signs that blended learning works as well in actual schools as it does in reformster thinky tanks and blended learning advocacy groups.
Relationships
The biggest issue in replacing teachers with tech is relationships.
The foundation of teaching and learning is relationships. It is true that once a person has learned how to learn, how to teach herself whatever it is she wants to know, then a real connection to another real human becomes less critical. But it takes a long time to get to that place, and as our system swings more toward giving students an external locus of control, it will take longer. In other words, if you are being taught that the whole point of school is proving to other people that you know and can do things, it will take longer to get to the point where you are accountable to yourself for your education.
Our students need to have a relationship with a teacher, a connection to another real live human. It is an absolutely essential part of learning and, as yet, computer technology can't reproduce it. In this area, technology has absolutely nothing that can substitute for a teacher.
Don't Mistake Me For a Luddite
You can take the computer-based technology out of my classroom when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. It provides me with innumerable valuable tools that help me extend and improve my instruction. But I don't feel as if I'm being excessively egotistical to say that the critical element, the central factor in my classroom complex of netbooks and tech and smartboardery and worksheets and reading and all the rest-- the central elements that ties all of that together is the teacher. Without me, the tech is pointless. With the tech, I am the equivalent of the classroom six million dollar man; but without me, it's just a bionic leg flopping around on the ground by itself. Tech can really help me, but it cannot replace me.
No.
The topic is being heavily discussed because, for many folks, "shortage" is spelled o-p-p-o-r-t-u-n-i-t-y. As in, golden opportunity to push TFA, alternative certification, and technology in (or instead of) the classroom. As the teacher "shortage" story has continued to bounce around the edusphere, some writers have stepped up to talk about how technology and blended learning could help solve the problem.
First off, we don't really have a teacher shortage. We have a shortage of employers offering the working conditions necessary to attract people to the teaching profession.
The worst pockets of unfilled teaching positions are not marked by leaders saying, "How can we attract and retain more high quality teachers?" Instead, they're asking, "Where can we find people who will settle for working under the conditions that we're offering?"
There are plenty of creative answers to that question, including fast track programs, lots of alternative certification programs, and even proposals that some classes be taught by people who have only a high school diploma. But of course the people who are most willing to fill teaching jobs under even the lowest of conditions are not actual people at all, but pieces of technology.
But there are several large obstacles to using technology to plug the teacher "shortage." Here we go.
Tech Is More Expensive Than You Think
Remember when we were all excited because instead of paper books, we were going to use electronic versions of texts. Instead of having to buy new copies of High School Handbook of Tedious Grammar every five-to-ten years at a cost of Good God They Want HOW Much For This Dollars, we would have awesome digital copies that would never wear out. It was going to save the district millions.
But then it turned out that the company was going to make us license the e-copies of the text every three years for You Can't Be Serious Dollars, and the savings from going to to e-books were going to be somewhere between Modest and Non-existent. And that was before it finally sank in that netbooks or chromebooks or tablets or whatever we were using would only survive a few years before either needing to be replaced or being abandoned by the company that provided them. So actual savings turned out to be negative dollars.
Oops! Too Late!
Staying ahead of the technology curve is hard enough for people who work in that sector. But in my school, we do our classroom budgets almost a full year before we actually use the stuff we're budgeting for. I can look around right now, do my market research, find out where my students are in terms of apps and programs, and design something really cool for next year, and it will be absolutely quaint by the time next September rolls around. High school administrators may think that getting laptops in their students hands will be a big step forward; meanwhile, the students are trying to remember how to use this odd kind of device that they haven't touched since they were five.
It's Only Technology
The other mistake that oldsters make over and over and over again is to miscalculate the Wow Factor of computer tech. As repeatedly noted, our students are digital natives, and that means that a tablet and a computer and a smart phone are all about as novel and Wow-worthy as books or trees. I still meet people who think that a worksheet will be compelling to students because it's now a drill program on a computer. Nope. Not even a little. Doing that drill does allow the teacher to collect and crunch data is new, speedy, useful ways. But for the student, it's just same-old, same-old drill.
The other mistake oldsters (digital immigrants?) make when considering digital natives is to assume the digital natives are deeply interested in and knowledgeable about computer tech. Well, fellow oldster-- let me ask you this: when we were young, how many of us got really interested in the processes of printing and bookbinding? That's right-- almost none. We just used the tools in front of us without thinking too much about what and how they worked. My students know very little about computer tech except how to use the apps they like to use. Everything else requires my instruction, explanation, incentivization and general, you know, teaching in order for them to use it successfully.
There's No Successful Path To Follow
Rocketship Academy bet its entire existence on blended learning, on a model that set students in front of computers and let them ride that technobooster to the stars. They've had almost a decade to show us all how it's done. Instead, last year they had to scale back their aspirations. They threw everything they had at the idea, and it has just bounced off the wall and landed with a thud.
In short, if there's a really good scaleable way to use technology to reduce teacher staffing, nobody has been able to demonstrate it yet. KIPP and Rocketship have both demonstrated that computer-aided test prep works well and can be done with fewer meat widgets (huge hat tip to @hackerhuntress for that replacement for "human resources"), but there are no signs that blended learning works as well in actual schools as it does in reformster thinky tanks and blended learning advocacy groups.
Relationships
The biggest issue in replacing teachers with tech is relationships.
The foundation of teaching and learning is relationships. It is true that once a person has learned how to learn, how to teach herself whatever it is she wants to know, then a real connection to another real human becomes less critical. But it takes a long time to get to that place, and as our system swings more toward giving students an external locus of control, it will take longer. In other words, if you are being taught that the whole point of school is proving to other people that you know and can do things, it will take longer to get to the point where you are accountable to yourself for your education.
Our students need to have a relationship with a teacher, a connection to another real live human. It is an absolutely essential part of learning and, as yet, computer technology can't reproduce it. In this area, technology has absolutely nothing that can substitute for a teacher.
Don't Mistake Me For a Luddite
You can take the computer-based technology out of my classroom when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. It provides me with innumerable valuable tools that help me extend and improve my instruction. But I don't feel as if I'm being excessively egotistical to say that the critical element, the central factor in my classroom complex of netbooks and tech and smartboardery and worksheets and reading and all the rest-- the central elements that ties all of that together is the teacher. Without me, the tech is pointless. With the tech, I am the equivalent of the classroom six million dollar man; but without me, it's just a bionic leg flopping around on the ground by itself. Tech can really help me, but it cannot replace me.
Friday, August 28, 2015
No, NYT, Common Core Is Not About Knowledge
In today's New York Times, Natalie Wexler offers an op-ed from some parallel universe in which Common Core and reformsterism are-- well, maybe Opposites Day is today and I missed the memo.
She opens by arguing that the Big Standardized Test is not narrowing the curriculum, claiming that it's narrow anyway, and right off the bat she establishes herself as someone who doesn't understand how schools work. Heck, back in 1977 elementary teachers only spent 50 minutes per day on science and social studies, and that has only dropped by ten minutes. Some quick math tells us that over 180 days, that's a loss of 30 hours of instruction. I know in the private sector, ten minutes is nothing, but in a classroom, ten minutes is plenty of time to Get Some Stuff Done-- and it adds up quickly.
But that's just the overture. Wexler then launches into a full-blown opera about the romance between Common Core and Rich Content, the kind of knowledge-heavy education championed by guys like E. D. Hirsch. This shows a profound mis-understanding of the Common Core.
While critics blame the Common Core for further narrowing curriculums, the authors of the standards actually saw them as a tool to counteract that trend. They even included language stressing the importance of “building knowledge systematically.”
... Most educators, guided by the standards alone, have continued to focus on skills.
So Wexler's theory is that we're supposed to close read the standards and see, buried somewhere between a gerund phrase and optional appendices, a mandate to include rich content.
Like the rest of the rich content crowd, Wexler is so sure that rich content knowledge has to be there, she has convinced herself that it is.
She is wrong.
The standards are clearly focused on "skills" (whether the "skills" are really skills or not is another debate). David Coleman, the writer of the ELA standards, has given plenty of detailed and hugely clear demonstrations that in his standards, content is unimportant and literature is simply a conduit, a bucket, a paper cup for transmitting the skills to students. And the standards are written in the language of behavioral objectives-- students will "cite," demonstrate," "analyze." The quote that Wexler pins her "they even included language" hopes on is simply part of a tacked-on introduction to the standards-- not the standards themselves.
She gets the criticism of Common Core correct, quoting cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham to show that you can't improve reading skills without attaching them to content, and you can't test those skills without actually testing the students' prior knowledge. Her mistake is in reasoning that since you can't do those things, clearly Common Core and BS Testing are not trying to do those things. In this, she is incorrect.
Not only did Coleman intend ELA standards to be focused strictly on skills, but test manufacturers have gone out of their way to make prior knowledge irrelevant to the BS Tests, selecting passages that are obscure, strange, and just plain bizarre in an attempt to select items about which students are likely to have no prior knowledge. As Coleman loves to say, the idea is to stay within the four corners of the text, and to bring nothing into those four corners with you.
Wexler goes on to sing the praises of knowledge-rich curriculum, but she doesn't understand that knowledge-rich curriculum is irrelevant to Common Core, and that her explanation of why CCSS must include knowledge-rich curriculum is really an explanation of why Common Core stinks-- because it eschews knowledge-rich content.
Wexler is in a high state of denial here; what Common Core actually says is so wrong, she's convinced herself that it must actually mean something else.
But Common Core in general and the high stakes BS Tests in particular do not require, want, ask for or favor rich content. Tools like Depth of Knowledge are predicated on the very idea that the proper mental skills can be taught with any level of content. I could spend an entire year having my students reading and answering practice questions about nothing but articles from the National Enquirer and still get them fully prepared to rank "proficient" on the BS Test.
Her finish is a fine symbol of the confusion in this piece. First:
While standardized tests didn’t cause the curriculum to narrow, they’re a useful reminder that some students have acquired a lot less knowledge than others.
Wrong. Of course the tests caused the curriculum to narrow. And no, they don't tell us a single solitary thing about what knowledge the students possess. On the other hand:
But if we want to finally begin to remedy that, we can’t just teach the skills the tests seem to call for.
That's exactly right. It's a good argument against the Core, against the BS Testing, against the high stakes attached to those tests, and also an excellent argument in favor of the opt out movement. Even if Wexler didn't understand what argument she was actually making.
Note: For a more thorough and scholarly treatment of this issue, I highly recommend this piece from Johann N. Neem
She opens by arguing that the Big Standardized Test is not narrowing the curriculum, claiming that it's narrow anyway, and right off the bat she establishes herself as someone who doesn't understand how schools work. Heck, back in 1977 elementary teachers only spent 50 minutes per day on science and social studies, and that has only dropped by ten minutes. Some quick math tells us that over 180 days, that's a loss of 30 hours of instruction. I know in the private sector, ten minutes is nothing, but in a classroom, ten minutes is plenty of time to Get Some Stuff Done-- and it adds up quickly.
But that's just the overture. Wexler then launches into a full-blown opera about the romance between Common Core and Rich Content, the kind of knowledge-heavy education championed by guys like E. D. Hirsch. This shows a profound mis-understanding of the Common Core.
While critics blame the Common Core for further narrowing curriculums, the authors of the standards actually saw them as a tool to counteract that trend. They even included language stressing the importance of “building knowledge systematically.”
... Most educators, guided by the standards alone, have continued to focus on skills.
So Wexler's theory is that we're supposed to close read the standards and see, buried somewhere between a gerund phrase and optional appendices, a mandate to include rich content.
Like the rest of the rich content crowd, Wexler is so sure that rich content knowledge has to be there, she has convinced herself that it is.
She is wrong.
The standards are clearly focused on "skills" (whether the "skills" are really skills or not is another debate). David Coleman, the writer of the ELA standards, has given plenty of detailed and hugely clear demonstrations that in his standards, content is unimportant and literature is simply a conduit, a bucket, a paper cup for transmitting the skills to students. And the standards are written in the language of behavioral objectives-- students will "cite," demonstrate," "analyze." The quote that Wexler pins her "they even included language" hopes on is simply part of a tacked-on introduction to the standards-- not the standards themselves.
She gets the criticism of Common Core correct, quoting cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham to show that you can't improve reading skills without attaching them to content, and you can't test those skills without actually testing the students' prior knowledge. Her mistake is in reasoning that since you can't do those things, clearly Common Core and BS Testing are not trying to do those things. In this, she is incorrect.
Not only did Coleman intend ELA standards to be focused strictly on skills, but test manufacturers have gone out of their way to make prior knowledge irrelevant to the BS Tests, selecting passages that are obscure, strange, and just plain bizarre in an attempt to select items about which students are likely to have no prior knowledge. As Coleman loves to say, the idea is to stay within the four corners of the text, and to bring nothing into those four corners with you.
Wexler goes on to sing the praises of knowledge-rich curriculum, but she doesn't understand that knowledge-rich curriculum is irrelevant to Common Core, and that her explanation of why CCSS must include knowledge-rich curriculum is really an explanation of why Common Core stinks-- because it eschews knowledge-rich content.
Wexler is in a high state of denial here; what Common Core actually says is so wrong, she's convinced herself that it must actually mean something else.
But Common Core in general and the high stakes BS Tests in particular do not require, want, ask for or favor rich content. Tools like Depth of Knowledge are predicated on the very idea that the proper mental skills can be taught with any level of content. I could spend an entire year having my students reading and answering practice questions about nothing but articles from the National Enquirer and still get them fully prepared to rank "proficient" on the BS Test.
Her finish is a fine symbol of the confusion in this piece. First:
While standardized tests didn’t cause the curriculum to narrow, they’re a useful reminder that some students have acquired a lot less knowledge than others.
Wrong. Of course the tests caused the curriculum to narrow. And no, they don't tell us a single solitary thing about what knowledge the students possess. On the other hand:
But if we want to finally begin to remedy that, we can’t just teach the skills the tests seem to call for.
That's exactly right. It's a good argument against the Core, against the BS Testing, against the high stakes attached to those tests, and also an excellent argument in favor of the opt out movement. Even if Wexler didn't understand what argument she was actually making.
Note: For a more thorough and scholarly treatment of this issue, I highly recommend this piece from Johann N. Neem
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