A Shameful Display

Valerie Strauss lists the effect on public education if the congressional supercommittee fails in its task to reach a compromise on lowering the deficit.

How education fares if debt supercommittee fails

There are new reports that the supercommittee is getting ready to admit that its Republican and Democratic members couldn’t compromise after several months of negotiations — this after Congress itself couldn’t reach an agreement.

Legislators should be mighty proud of the terrific lesson they are giving school children everywhere on the subject of democratic government — which can only function with compromise.

Naturally some legislators would prefer to see school budgets cut resulting in the loss of essential programs for millions of children and costing hundreds of thousands of education jobs rather than tax the wealthy at the same rate as the rest of us because they're the "job creators." (Which reminds me...how are they doing on that job creation, thing, anyway?)

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also had some words about this...

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Deficit caused by wars, tax breaks and Wall Street 

“...the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars — unpaid for. It was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country. It was caused by a recession as result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the causes of the deficit, I will be damned if we’re going to balance the budget on backs of the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor. That’s wrong.”

It's wrong. It's selfish. It's shameful.

No Fun Any More...

"As long as it's fun, I'll keep teaching."

That's what I said while I was teaching. I wanted to retire before I was ineffective...before I was too comfortable...to inured to the crises children faced every day. I didn't want to be the punch drunk prize-fighter who kept going back into the ring only to be flattened in the first round. I didn't want to be the old ball player who limped to the plate to pinch hit when there was no one left on the bench. I wanted to make a difference every day of my career...until the last day I walked out of the school building.

Lately I've been thinking about my decision to retire. Many of my former colleagues tell me I retired "just in time" since our school system (and, of course, American public education in general) is going through a very difficult time right now...schools closing, curriculum adjustments, teachers shuffled from one place to another, increased focus on the already insane demand for testing, testing, testing. There's not much security...not much time to really teach...not much reliance on teacher expertise...not much joy in the classroom.

Nevertheless, through my volunteer efforts in two local elementary schools, I realize that I still enjoy being with children in a learning environment. I enjoy trying to fit the explanation to the child to solve the puzzle of how each individual child learns. I enjoy thinking about the learning process and asking the questions which will help each child discover new ways to learn. After all, one size does not fit all.

There are days when I feel like I retired too early. I miss the fun and the excitement of learning with children. I miss reading aloud from Shel Silverstein, Roald Dahl and William Stieg. Oh, I know it wasn't all "flowers and sausages." I don't miss the students throwing up on the bus on the way to our field trip destination, or the fights during recess, or the frustrations of bureaucratic blindness to the reality of the classroom. No...absolutely not. But the moments of enjoyment with students made up for it.

Speaking of It's Not All Flowers and Sausages, Mrs. Mimi recently asked about the fun of teaching.

It's November. For most of you, that means report cards and possibly conferences. Which means data, data, data, some progress monitoring, and more data. Which means driving yourself insane to find moments to still do actual teaching in the midst of all this ridiculous assessing. Which means piles of paper everywhere. Which means that I-just-want-to-lie-down feeling hits you in the face every time you walk into your classroom and see those piles and think of that data which reminds you of report cards and for-the-love-of-all-things-holy-and-organized how am I going to get it all done?!?

Wait, where's the fun again?

Exactly...where's the fun? When talking with teachers I can feel their frustration. The opportunities for them to meet the needs of their students beyond a data point and test score are being restricted. I listen to them worry about a child who is not achieving and I hear the not-so-hidden fear that the child won't "pass the test." I see them taking their students to the school library and, instead of sitting and reading with them, enjoying books and instilling a love of literature and learning, they're grabbing one student after another for a "quick assessment." The teacher's body has been extended by the length of an iPad into which they deposit data in a seemingly endless stream of tap-tap-tapping.

This morning, I read Walt Gardner's Reality Check. Today's entry was titled simply Teaching Is No Longer Fun.

For teachers who started their careers before the accountability movement gained traction, the transformation has been traumatic. No longer can they rely on their professional judgment in preparing lessons, nor are they likely to experience the satisfaction of having opened the eyes of their students to knowledge for its own sake. They now have to treat their lessons as part of an assembly line, where instruction is evaluated strictly on the basis of how much value it adds. The rationale is that the real world operates accordingly.

Reformers maintain that teaching and learning can't always be fun. They say that discipline is an indispensable part of the educational process. That is certainly true. But the way things are unfolding in classrooms across the country means that even if students perform adequately on standardized tests, we run the risk of forever turning them off to further learning in the same subjects. As I wrote before, you can teach a subject well but teach students to hate the subject in the process. When that happens, it's a Pyrrhic victory.

So maybe I didn't retire too early. Maybe I did "get out just in time." My volunteer experiences still give me the "fun" of teaching with none of the cognitive dissonance associated with mindless data collecting and the "assembly line" instruction currently being forced on teachers. Mrs. Mimi ended her "Where's the fun" column with...

The fun is with the kids. Remember them?

As a volunteer I get that. I get to have fun being a teacher. That's something that too many teachers are missing. Students aren't becoming lifelong learners, they are just learning to pass the test. Teachers are being pushed and shoved into the "data collector" mold.

I have to believe that some teachers continue to have fun learning with their students. I'm sure some are fighting the data madness either in their classrooms -- hiding behind their closed doors while they explore the ever diminishing "teachable moments" -- or in professional meetings by speaking out against the insanity that threatens to overwhelm public education. Others, sadly, are leaving. Veteran teachers are retiring early and half of all beginning teachers don't last the first five years...because they have found that teaching is not teaching any more...teaching is no longer fun. As one former colleague who is still teaching put it

...the stress and pressure...We are fighting high blood pressure, many sleepless nights, worry beyond belief...it is destroying our personal lives - [at school] every weekend working, home grading papers...no time for exercise...we have no life...

Where are tomorrow's teachers going to come from? When teaching is no longer fun...neither is learning. We're selling our children's education to the corporate so-called "reformers." The "reform" of public education in America is killing learning.

Politician as Principal

On November 16, Indiana State Senator Dennis Kruse (R-Auburn, District 14) spent the day as the guest principal of a local school. He came away with some impressions that his Republican colleagues usually don't express. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette told the story...

Sen. Kruse spends the day as principal

Kruse spent much of Wednesday morning on his feet, visiting classrooms and mingling with students at Southwick, a school with about 480 students in pre-kindergarten through second grade. He said he was particularly struck by the diversity of the largely Burmese school, where 51 percent of students speak English as a second language.

Kruse said “it’s just not right” for the state to test students who come to a district with no English language skills.

In the future, he said, he would support legislation that would give schools the option to let more of their non-native English speaking students get out of ISTEP+ testing. Schools already have some wiggle room, he said, but not enough.

Kruse said he left with a positive impression of the school, and said he was particularly impressed to see such a large emphasis put on reading. He said Southwick’s teachers were working hard, and like all teachers, needed to be appreciated for their dedication.

“I think we need to compliment our teachers more,” he said. “Just to come into the classroom everyday you need to have quite the commitment.”

Did Senator Kruse learn enough to stand up to his Republican colleagues in the State Senate?

Do those hard working teachers who "need to be appreciated for their dedication" deserve to have their full collective bargaining rights restored?

Since it's "just not right" to give the ISTEP (or other standardized test) to students who don't speak English, should said tests be used to evaluate teachers?

Let's see if Senator Kruse carries his new found "positive impressions" back to Indianapolis.

2011 Medley #13

Billionaires, Research and Current Reforms, Charters, Teacher Effectiveness, Blaming Teachers, Poverty, Stalinizing American Education

Billionaires for Education Reform

...our public schools have never before been subject to such a sustained assault on their very foundations. Never before were there so many people, with such vast resources, intent on dismantling public education. What does this mean for the future of public education? What does it mean for our democracy?

Research doesn’t back up key ed reforms

There is no solid evidence supporting many of the positions on teachers and teacher evaluation taken by some school reformers today, according to a new assessment of research on the subject.

Reports on charter schools expose new problems

Solutions to problems that in turn cause at least as many new problems aren’t really great solutions, are they?

See Also National Study of Charter-School Management Organizations Finds Varying Practices and Impacts

In Tennessee, Following the Rules for Evaluations Off a Cliff

...the state is requiring teachers without test results to be evaluated based on the scores of teachers at their school with test results. So Emily Mitchell, a first-grade teacher at David Youree Elementary, will be evaluated using the school’s fifth-grade writing scores...

...“How stupid is that?” said Michelle Pheneger, who teaches ACT math prep at Blackman High and is also being evaluated in part based on writing scores. “My job can be at risk, and I’m not even being evaluated by my own work.”

What Studies Say about Teacher Effectiveness

Research has shown that the variation in student achievement is predominantly a product of individual and family background characteristics. Of the school factors that have been isolated for study, teachers are probably the most important determinants of how students will perform on standardized tests.

NY Times Continues to Blame Schools and Teachers for Poverty and Penury

The Business Roundtable's Rube Goldberg plan for evaluating teachers in Tennessee (and other venues with RTTT money) has met with almost universal disdain, a response that has brought CEOs running out of their penthouses to dictate responses for the corporate media editorial pages.

Proof there is no proof for education reforms

...when Education Secretary Arne Duncan was asked by an Education Week reporter about the evidence base for the policies of his department, he replied, “So I would argue the whole turnaround stuff is relatively new but I think there’s a lot of scientific evidence that the status quo doesn’t work and that’s the evidence that I’m looking at.” That is akin to saying, “I know my child is ill so I will give her any new medicine I happen to have in my cabinet.”

Mathis: Poverty is No. 1 driver of education achievement gap

...the National Bureau of Economic Research recently posted an analysis that showed that a 2 percent increase in unemployment results in a 16 percent increase in schools not making adequate progress. Most troubling, in a nation driven more by self-interest than the common good, the expanding economic gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent is a harbinger of an increase in the achievement gap rather than a decrease.

Stalinizing American Education

The similarities between contemporary American educational reform and Soviet educational reform of the 1930s are as striking as they are discomfiting.

Why is current American educational policy so focused on punishing teachers rather than helping students? In examining the credentials of the individuals in the Secretary of Education’s cabinet, those who are guiding the educational reforms that will inexorably alter the character of American public education for the foreseeable future, one characteristic becomes apparent—none of the members of the cabinet listed below has ever worked as a teacher in a public school.