What's
Right For Kids. . .
It certainly appears that
something truly has gone horribly wrong in the American public education
system. All of the rhetoric and hype
about our schools failing our students and the issues around Achievement Gaps
paint a very bleak picture for our students' futures and our nation's
prospects. It isn't hard to find someone
publicly airing the "dirty laundry" of our public education system,
and it's equally easy to find people offering solutions that will fix all of
our problems. Solutions that inevitably
involve eliminating educator unions, increasing assessments and following the
outlined plans of some, for-profit, think-tank/business/organization with ties
to one of the major corporate "reform" groups.
These so called
"reformers" have the ear of the American people, and they certainly
have access to those who make policy decisions about education at the highest
levels. This is obvious when we examine
the current trends in public education.
These, supposedly new and innovative, "reforms that are offered are
presented in a way that seems to make sense with many citizens. Who can argue against the idea of challenging
students, providing increased "rigor", holding schools and educators
accountable, and many of the other theoretical benefits of the
assessment/privatization movement in education?
The problem with these
"reforms" and the battles that they have caused around public
education in America
is that they too often focus on the wrong things, and do so for the wrong
reasons. There are two common refrains
used by "reformers" to justify the need to implement their
ideas. These two ideas are not
necessarily compatible and in some ways are actually mutually exclusive.
The most important tenet
of the reform movement is the idea that our schools are not providing a quality
education to students, and this results in a lack of quality employees to power
the American economy. This principle
gets to the heart of what those with the most economic power want from our
educational system. The system should be
set up to serve the needs of business and the economy first. After all, "The business of America
is business." Along the way,
"reformers" can justify their emphasis on making students
"career ready" by emphasizing the economic benefits that individuals
can reap, but many of the skills that are emphasized in the current climate of
standards and assessment are not those needed for innovative thinking. Instead, we emphasize computation, decoding
and a strict adherence to what others have written, not creative thinking and problem
solving skills.
This starts at a younger
and younger age. It is reflected in the
emphasis on the basics and the resulting lack of instruction in content areas
like social studies. Elementary school
schedules begin to resemble middle school schedules and students lose
opportunities to play and explore the world.
Opportunities that they need in order to fully develop their cognitive
abilities.
The second part of the
"reform" platform is the idea that change needs to occur in order to
give families and students freedom from a system that doesn't work for
them. According to this line of thinking
the public school system, public educators, and most importantly the unions
that represent the educators have all conspired to create a system that
benefits educators at the expense of students.
In order to recreate the system and avoid those "greedy educators"
the "reformers" have turned to people outside the world of education
for ideas. They have created marketing
campaigns and well packaged programs that are very consumer friendly. However, the supposedly innovative and
progressive ideas are usually either repackaged ideas with a new cover, or
simply business proposals that lure families away from real educational
opportunities.
It would be one thing if
the "reform" movement would be content to operate independently of
the public school system and attempt to really offer new ways of educating
students. Competition and choice are not
necessarily bad, especially when they occur in a truly fair and unbiased
environment. Instead, they have been
lobbying hard to steal needed resources away from the public schools through
voucher programs and other initiatives.
Educators in the public schools can't escape their efforts to profit
from education and students. We are
swamped with new packaged programs that are created by companies who are
pretending to care about students, but who actually are looking for
profits. Too often the same companies
that are lobbying for privatization are also providing materials that public
school educators are being forced to use.
In the end, it boils down
to creating a system that really is best for kids. The question is, who are we to trust to build
that system? Should we be trusting
groups and companies who stand to make huge profits from pushing a specific
program or agenda? Should we trust
educators who have been working directly with students and who are a part of
the community that they live and work in?
The choice seems obvious, yet in our consumer driven, highly
distractible, and "flavor of the moment" society we too often fall
for the former.
There is hope for the
future. Educators across the nation are
ending their silence. They are no longer
willing to simply "do as they're told" and follow the directives that
they recognize as questionable in intent and result. They are banding together with families and
students to make sure our voices are heard loudly and clearly.
Wisconsin
Politics: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. . .
The Good. . .
The
Wisconsin Supreme Court began hearing arguments in the case the MTI brought
against Act 10.
After and intense and
sometimes bitter struggle Kenosha
educators negotiated 2 one year contracts.
The Bad. . .
This goes into the
"Bad" category because of the mixed nature of the ideas offered by
Mary Burke. While it is good to hear
that Burke, the current frontrunner in the race to be the Democrat's nominee to
oppose Walker in 2014, isn't in favor of expanding the voucher program, I hope
that she continues to develop her platform regarding education and becomes an
even stronger advocate for public education so that her candidacy can move
firmly into the "Good" category.
We know any GOP controlled
legislature will fight to expand the vouchers and any Governor will have to
find a way to protect our public schools from these efforts. It is true that Burke will have to work with
the legislature, it is also clear that the current legislature in Wisconsin isn't very
open to bipartisan ideas or compromise.
If elected governor, any Democrat will face bitter opposition to any
changes in the current direction our state is moving in.
Burke's ideas that all
schools need to be held accountable is fair in some ways, but part of the
problems that we are seeing in education can be traced back to the attempts to
instill accountability in ways that damage students and educational
efforts. Simply making voucher schools
accountable in the same ways that public schools are won't improve things for any
students.
The Ugly. . .
Supporters of Scott Walker
who want to believe that their "hero" is all about limiting the power
of government should keep this quote from Attorney General Van Hollen
(referring to a comment by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley about two ships passing) in mind, "I
don't believe the two ships pass in the night. I believe they collide and the
state has the bigger ship and we shall win."
"It's the economy
stupid" is a mantra that has worked in political campaigns throughout
history, and Wisconsin's
Democrats should keep hammering on this issue.
We should be very
concerned about the future of democracy in Wisconsin and across the nation.
Think carefully before
heading out to shop on Thanksgiving. It
is our opportunity to use the "Free Market" to help regain some
control of our consumer driven insanity.
Race,
Education and
Madison, WI.
. .
Madison, Wisconsin has
long been known as an island of liberalism surrounded by the reality that is
the rest of Wisconsin. This is sometimes used as a derogatory phrase
to try and paint the city and its residents as out of touch with the rest of
the state and with the "real world" in general. It is also a source of pride for many
residents and is consistently demonstrated in elections, policies and attitudes
of the residents of the city.
Within the supposedly
ultra-liberal bastion that Madison
represents, there are some significant problems that exist. This shouldn't come as a surprise, after all,
no human society has, or will, achieve complete equality or justice for every
member. However, this doesn't mean that
we simply accept the problems that exist.
What it does mean is that we must be aware of the challenges and work to
try and address them in the most equitable and proactive manner possible.
Some of the most glaring,
and surprising to some, issues that the city must work on are the problems
involving race. These issues are
multi-faceted and exist across a number of different areas of political,
economic and social importance. The
statistics are striking and startling.
In a city that prides itself on socially just policies and providing
opportunity for all, the reality for many citizens is quite different. Black youths are six times more likely to be
arrested here, compared to 3 times more likely to be arrested in the rest of Wisconsin. The economic statistics for non-white
citizens are drastically different than their white counterparts. We have a huge achievement gap that exists in
our public school system. In short,
there are really multiple versions of the Madison
reality that differ based on an individual's race and native language.
A significant amount of
effort has been made by defenders of the city's reputation to justify the
statistics. Many of these arguments are
grounded in the reality that we live in here in Madison, and help explain some of the
differences between groups. The fact
that Madison is
a city that features a major university and several other colleges plays a role
in the discrepancies between groups. The
types of jobs that are available lend themselves to a significant gap in
economic status, and a corresponding gap between members of different
groups.
The explanations also have
a historical legacy that makes changing the current reality difficult. Over time Madison's neighborhoods have developed in
ways that are highly segregated, with groups separated by distance and natural
barriers. I also believe that we are a
part of the next wave of the Great Migration that has involved the movement of
people from negative locations (the Deep South,
poverty stricken inner cities) to places where the migrants hope to find
success. Yet, when arriving in towns
like Madison,
the migrants find themselves without a social network and without opportunity
for employment that provides an income equal to the cost of living in a largely
upper middle class, white-collar community.
Our schools reflect these
problems that exist in the larger community.
There is no denying that the relatively rapid shift in demographics that
has occurred in Madison
has left our school system struggling to catch up with the needs of our
students. That this has occurred during
a time when school budgets are slashed and fewer resources are available for
our students has certainly not helped.
All of these facts, and
more that I didn't mention, combine to create an environment where inequality
exists in the midst of a community that claims to want to do anything possible
to avoid that exact outcome. That they
are real, and that they impact any efforts to eliminate gaps and inequality is
true. Yet, the fact remains that we must
find ways to overcome these challenges and move forward in closing the
inequalities and gaps that exist in our city.
No challenges can justify such grim realities that our fellow citizens
live in.
One of the biggest barriers
to creating a truly equal society lies in the fact that much of the racism and
bias that occurs is hidden and covert.
In fact, to a large degree the problems that exist are hidden even from
those who perpetuate the problems. We
simply don't realize that we are contributing to a problem through words and actions that, at best, simply
create an environment that ignores the underlying problems in our society. This is true on all sides of the political
"aisles", and the general sense that it is someone else who is
causing the problems allows the gaps to expand and halts our progress towards a
socially just society.
We toss around terms like
racism and prejudice, but those words only apply to other people, in other
places and often in other time periods.
The fact that many in America applauded the decision to roll back parts of
the Voting Rights Act, and that so many express the opinion that Affirmative
Action is no longer relevant demonstrates this false belief that we have moved
past our troubled racial past. It is
troubling that we can claim to have overcome our past, while we still continue
to see so many people struggle to succeed in our society. It is also disturbing that we see other
groups targeted for the same types of discrimination and abuse that
African-American citizens have endured, all while continuing to make the claim
that our society is unbiased and a provider of equal opportunity for all.
Conservatives love to
point fingers at Madison
and trumpet our failure to address issues of race and achievement. These barbs hurt, not because they are untrue,
but mainly because, when we really think about it our efforts to address the
inequities of society haven't worked. We
have been comfortable with modest efforts, and satisfied that we are not
overtly racist in the policies that we promote.
It is easy for Progressives to look at the heavily biased policies of
the modern GOP and think that we are doing better than they are. While that might be true in many ways, in
others it is simply a justification for failure. We may mean for our policies to create a different
environment, but the results just aren't there.
The other problem that the
attacks on Madison,
and liberal policies in general, by conservatives create is the climate of
crisis that increases tension and reduces compromise and problem solving. When two such drastically different
philosophies compete (as is the case in Wisconsin)
there is little opportunity to truly debate and discuss issues in a positive
way. It becomes a war of attrition, a
climate of survival of the fittest, a place where truly progressive and
proactive efforts are swallowed up by the bigger conflicts for power in
society.
Many different groups have
found themselves cast as pawns in the game.
Organized labor, environmentalists, and many other groups are forced to
choose between one of two routes to power.
We see groups played against each other, and used by those in power to
maintain control of the access to political, economic and social control. The struggles of the common citizen to
achieve and find success in society are ignored by those who look to advance
their own views.
An example of this is the
struggle to close the Achievement Gaps in Madison's
schools. The efforts of educators,
families and students to find ways to address the issues around achievement in
school are used by politicians to promote their own agendas. Conservatives point to the Gaps and garner
support for destroying educator unions.
Private companies point to the gaps and use them to promote for-profit
voucher schools and packaged curriculums.
Lost in the shuffle are the students and the ability of educators to
work cooperatively with families to promote achievement.
There are no quick fixes
for the problems that exist in Madison, just
like there are no quick fixes for the rest of Wisconsin
and America. Our problems around race go back through
history and are deeply ingrained in the way that each of us view the world. We can only continue our efforts to try and
create opportunities for our society to address the underlying issues that
create the problems we see manifested in our statistical failures.
One of the most important
things that we can work towards is the elimination of the stratification of our
society by income. The gaps between the
wealthy and the rest of society are widening and this will only create more
problems for the citizens of Madison, and the
rest of America. Poverty is increasing, and we know that
poverty is one of the most important statistics in determining the success of a
student in our schools.
Poverty is also a huge
indicator of the health of our society.
This is true whether we are talking about a city, county, state or
nation. We can't ignore the fact that
more and more people are slipping into poverty and fewer are reaching even
middle-class status. This is a difficult
cycle to break, and even more so when compounded by racial, gender or language
barriers.
As individual citizens we
have little ability to impact the larger economic picture. Yet, our society is made up of a large number
of individuals and each of us has a role, no matter how small, in how our
society behaves. We need to closely
examine our own beliefs and our own actions and look for ways to make
changes.
We, as a whole society,
have the potential to improve and do better than we currently are
performing.
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