A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - October 2012

Here are some pictures, graphic images and cartoons from FaceBook -- plus my own 2 cents worth of comments. Click on any image to see the full sized version.

Students are not a product.

"Reformers" are trying to remake education using a business model...competition between schools, competition between teachers and demanding "quality control" using standardized tests. Teachers and students succeed when there is cooperation, not competition. Standardized tests have not been developed to standardize students. Human beings cannot be standardized. Our nation has been successful, at least in part, because of our diversity.

Won't Back Down tells lies about public education.

Won't back down is a badly made film about something that has never happened to people who don't exist.

Teachers are more than just teachers.

This says it all. If you've never spent a significant amount of time in a classroom with 15 - 50 children between the ages of 3 and 18, then you don't understand what teaching pre-school, elementary school and secondary school is like. Bill Gates doesn't know anything about teaching. Arne Duncan doesn't know anything about teaching. Just because you went to school doesn't mean you know what it is to teach. I've been to the doctor, but I wouldn't attempt to practice medicine...

Music -- the Arts, complement a rich curriculum.

Science is true.

Race to the Top has hurt public education.

Race to the Top has expanded the damage done by No Child Left Behind. Privatization, teaching to the test, judging teachers, principals and schools by student test scores, and increasing the number of for-profit charter schools are all part of Race to the Top. Federal money is not given where it's needed, but to those states which tow the "reformer's" line.

Resources for education are being cut.

Public school teachers normally spend hundreds of their own dollars every year on their students and their classrooms. Cuts in education spending is making that more and more common. The priorities of the country are mixed up.

Pubic Education takes everyone...

Public school educators teach future doctors, lawyers, police officers, fire fighters, soldiers, merchants...everyone.

Unions are only half of a contract.

Take a look at any teachers union contract and you'll find the signatures of local school administrators and board members on the document as well as the union leaders. Some administrators are quick to blame teachers unions for contracts they don't like, but they often fail to take responsibility for their own participation. Politicians talk about contracts as if they were death warrants for school children and unions as if they were evil, subversive organizations. Teachers unions are made up of teachers. I spent my entire teaching career as a member of a teachers union. Most of my colleagues were members as well. Not once did any of the teachers I worked with either as a teacher or as a union representative, put the needs of teachers above the needs of students.

Of course unions try to get the best working conditions for their members (and non-members as well -- unions negotiate for everyone, not just members). But, as the Chicago Teachers Union showed, it's not just about the money. Look at Schools Chicago Students Deserve, a publication of the CTU. The CTU is asking for reasonable class sizes, a rich curriculum including the arts, essential services for students, partnerships with parents, and continuing professional development for teachers. That's what we all want! Educators' working conditions are student learning conditions.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

Resistance is Necessary, not Futile

This morning, Diane Ravitch posted Make the Best of It?,

Carol Burris has valiantly rallied her fellow principals in New York to oppose the state’s test-based evaluation system created in response to Race to the Top. Carol is principal of an exemplary high school in Rockville Center, New York. Some readers responded to her latest post by saying, “look, it’s over. They won. Live with it. Make the best of it.” I hear this all the time: Stop fighting. The train is leaving the station. Resistance is futile. Carol answers here:

I will continue to put my energies into bringing this awful system down even as I seek to protect my teachers from it as best I can. There is nothing that the creators of this system would like more than for us to ‘make the best of it’. The ‘make of the best of it argument’ was what inspired MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I am so glad that King wrote that remarkable letter and did not take the advice to slow down and make the best of segregation.

I sometimes feel like giving up...and have said so on this blog, at least once. The "reformers" have the money and the power on their side. We have the numbers and research on our side, but the truth is, money runs the country. Nevertheless, when I read what Ravitch, Burris, and several of the commenters wrote, I realized that it's our obligation to keep trying...no matter what the odds. Hey, I'm a Cubs fan...I'm used to "not giving up in the face of adversity."

Here is the comment I added to the conversation...

I get discouraged a lot easier than I used to, but I know it’s important to keep fighting. I got into teaching because 1) I believed in public education, 2) I believed I had something to offer children, and 3) I wanted to be the kind of teacher who I needed (but didn’t always have) when I was a student. Since I have retired I have been volunteering in a local elementary school for one-on-one tutoring and I still believe in what I’m doing…for the same three reasons.

In addition, however, I try to encourage my former colleagues working in the school at which I volunteer. I blog about public education policy (though vent is probably a more accurate word). I also run blogs/web sites for two active local teacher unions, two local retired teacher organizations, and a local community group made up mostly of parents and retired teachers.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but, in my opinion, we can’t give up. As long as we know that our children…and usually our neediest children…are being hurt by current education policies we can’t be quiet. We owe it to them, our grandchildren, ourselves and our nation to do what we can to fight against the privatization and/or destruction of public education.

If we believe that every child deserves a free, appropriate public education…
if we believe that a free, adequately supported public education system is important to a free society…
if we believe that we are capable, as a nation, of providing our children with such an educational system…
then we are obligated to do whatever we can to see that it’s restored, and sustained.

I do it by working with a few students, reaching a few readers, helping out former colleagues and supporting organizations who are working towards the same goals.

If we really believe that public education is important, we can’t give up.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

"Turnaround" Brings Upheaval, Not Help

Here's another item for the omg-why-didn't-we-think-of-this-(sarcasm intended)-file. The headline in the story is, New Study Finds Current School Turnaround Policies are “More Likely to Cause Upheaval Than to Help”

Let's look at the problems with the way schools are turned around, according to the study...

1. Replacement of staff (aka "churn"): Struggling schools are difficult enough to staff. If you fire half the staff, where are you going to find replacement teachers?

2. Turn arounds are a top down decision. In Chicago, school board members didn't even attend the "We're closing your school" meetings:

...many experts consider community engagement critical for turnarounds to succeed...It is extremely important to engage those most impacted by turnaround: families, community members and teachers in targeted schools, usually in racially and socio-economically segregated areas...These groups are our biggest assets in improving education. They can help plan and implement turnaround strategies that are tailored to each school and community and they have roots in the community to ensure a reform lasts overtime.

3. Cutting budgets, raising class sizes, the schools which are left are required to do more with less:

First among the recommendations is increasing current federal and state spending for public education, particularly as it is allocated for turnaround-style reforms.“Real change requires real investment in teaching and learning,” Trujillo states. “Though closing a school and firing teachers make great headlines, the real work of educating our students is about providing all young people with engaging and supported learning environments, high-quality teachers and rich opportunities to learn and succeed.”

So instead of cutting budgets and closing schools...instead of firing teachers and principals and bringing in inexperienced beginners, research says we need to have a collaborative effort between all stakeholders -- teachers and the community -- and provide full funding to improve struggling schools. We need to support schools not close them.

Evidence shows that top-down, punitive efforts that are currently in vogue are ineffective and counterproductive. A collaborative, community-driven approach combined with significant, sustained financial investment and a focus on teaching and learning has been proven to be the better path to school improvement.

Ok, now, is anyone surprised at this? Does anyone expect anything to change?

I would love someone to prove to me that the top-down imposition of damage done to our neediest students is being done by people who are really caring, just misguided, and not by people who are just trying to suck as much money out of the public education system as they can...

I guess proof would be someone with some power (yes, I'm talking to you, Mr. President), saying something like, "Wow, that research shows that we've been doing things wrong. It's time to change."

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

America's Priorities -- Children Last

I spent last weekend with a former (retired) Chicago Public Schools teacher and spouse. As expected, at several points during my visit the conversation turned to the situation in CPS and the recent teachers strike. It was interesting given my experience as a teacher in a much smaller district -- the 400,000 students in Chicago Public Schools compared to our 9500 students, about 2.4%...47% of my system's students are on free or reduced lunches, compared to about 86% in Chicago. Chicago spends an average of $7946 per pupil, my home district spends $9399.

All the schools in my district have an art program, a physical education program and a music program (sometimes only once or twice a week in the elementary schools, but at least it's there). Many Chicago Public Schools don't have any art, or music. Our schools have good facilities and playground space. Many CPS schools don't. Finally (and my friends are likely getting tired of hearing me harp on this) 160 CPS elementary schools don't have school libraries...in our district every school has a well stocked library. There are other things...support staff, comfortable buildings (ours are all air conditioned), sufficient materials. It's clear that many CPS schools are not well supported.

A similarity, on the other hand, is money...or more precisely the lack of money...and one thing I heard while visiting in Chicago was, "it's all very well and good to want these things, but where is the money going to come from? The city's broke."

Chicago is just one more place where there's "not enough money" for the basic education of children. The "investment in tomorrow" is not being supported. It's just not a high enough priority.

The teachers in Chicago understand that there are financial problems, however the financial problems are exacerbated by economic choices...

"Teachers recognize that the school system and the city are experiencing financial difficulties. However, policy choices have played a significant role in this reality. One cannot just simply blame the state of economy. At the school system level, CPS spends millions of dollars on standardized testing and closing schools instead of supporting them. The Office of New Schools, for example, had a budget of over $300 million last year. At the city level, millions of property tax dollars that would otherwise go to schools every year have been redirected away from the school system thanks to the TIF program. Instead, a lot of this money goes to corporations like Willis Tower, United Airlines, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. To make up for the budget shortfall, CPS must raise property taxes on those who do not live in a TIF. After about three decades of the TIF program, a total of at least $1 billion has probably been redirected away from the schools..." -- Understanding the Chicago Teacher Strike – A Quick Guide

In their program for improving schools, The Schools Chicago's Students Deserve, the Chicago Teachers Union makes the point that a lot of the city's money has gone to corporations and the wealthy with little to show as a return. Others have noted the same...and it's been going on for some time.

Originally TIFs weren't intended to build tax-exempt properties like schools: they were supposed to subsidize economic development in blighted communities with the goal of eventually increasing property tax revenue. But as the TIF program has expanded and evolved--the city's created more than 100 districts in the last ten years--Mayor Daley and the City Council have drawn on them to subsidize projects from upscale condos in trendy neighborhoods to Millennium Park to a rehab of of the lake-shore campus of tax-exempt Loyola University. -- The Schools Scam (6/22/06)

The new Chicago school budget strangles public education

Board spokespeople often claim that there is “no money”, but Mr. Cawley failed to point out that the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois are always throwing money at problems as long as the money sticks to the wealthy.

• The Chicago Mercantile Exchange(CME) threw a tantrum and demanded a $77 million dollar state tax break. Poof! It appeared.

• The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) wanted a 15 million dollar state tax break. Poof! It appeared.

• Penny Pritzker of the Chicago Board of Education wanted $5.2 million dollars of Tax Increment Fund (TIF) money to build a new Hyatt Hotel. Poof! It appeared.

• Now Doug Oberhelman of Caterpillar, one of the largest employers in Illinois, is complaining about a tax increase and threatening to move the Caterpillar offices out of Peoria IL. Caterpillar made record profits of $4.5 billion 2011 and Oberhelman brought home $16.9 million.

The CTU's paper, The Schools Chicago's Students Deserve, identifies sources of money. They call for fair school funding, using tax money to support the students, ending corporate subsidies and loopholes (aka corporate welfare), and progressive taxation where everyone pays their share.

Fully Fund Education: A country and city that can afford to take care of its affluent citizens can afford to take care of those on the other end of the income scale. There is no excuse for denying students the essential services they deserve.

The education of Indiana's children is a lower priority than enriching testing and test-prep companies. We spend more than $46 million on testing programs. The testing and test-prep companies are getting rich, while money is being diverted from the places where it's needed. The same is happening in Illinois. The same is happening all over the country.

The legacy of keeping the education of today's children as a low priority will be increased poverty and income inequality which will lead to increased crime and increased civil unrest. We can't afford not to educate all of our children. We need to make our future a higher priority.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~