In
many ways it seems that an educator's job should be straightforward and
concrete in nature. We should be keeping our students safe, our classrooms
orderly and engaging, and instructing our students in the basic skills that
they will need to have in order to become productive, happy members of society.
Seems so simple on the surface, and all of us have a perception of what this
should entail. Our perceptions may be based on our own experiences, the experiences
of those close to us, and are also influenced by the culture we live in, and
that is where the basic expectations we have for our schools, our educators and
our students begins to get more complex.
Just
look at what we expect of those who work and learn in our public schools and
you can see why we find ourselves struggling to define what education should
look, sound and feel like in our public schools. Suddenly even the basic
statements that our schools should be safe, orderly and at the same time
engaging become problematic. This is especially true when we are dealing with a
diversity of cultures, experiences and expectations. What looks safe and
orderly to one person may feel uncomfortable and rigid to another. I can think
of countless examples of just how complex and confusing it can be to try and
accomplish the impossible task of making the perfect environment, designing the
perfect curriculum and honoring the needs of every student.
An
engaging environment may seem chaotic to some. As an educator I've been
instructed to make my room's walls colorful and welcoming for students, simple
and plain so as not to distract my students, and to keep them relatively bare
to avoid fire hazards. Clearly an impossible task if I am trying to follow all
directives and do what's right for all my students. Any activity will lend
itself to the strengths of a variety of learners. Some of my students excel in
group tasks, some work well alone and struggle when partnered or grouped. Some
students love to explore things in an active environment while others prefer to
gain knowledge from books and paper/pencil tasks.
Over
my nearly 2 decades of teaching I have struggled to develop a variety of
approaches to teaching any given skill and to managing the needs of my
students. Like every other teacher I know I can talk about experiences that
those outside of education would never believe could happen. I've seen moments
of incredible joy and moments of heart-wrenching tragedy on personal, community
and even societal levels. Through it all I've come to believe in the power of
public education and to respect the many different values, skills and expertise
that everyone who walks through my classroom door brings with them. This is
true whether they are a student, volunteer, professional educator, family or
community member. I have come to the realization that it take a whole village
to raise every child, and it also takes a wide range of ideas and strategies to
reach every student.
Along
the way I know that there have been students that I've had a real impact on.
Students who I have seen grow and mature into tremendous people and citizens.
I'm proud to hear about their accomplishments, no matter how "big" or
"small" they may be. For some it is a high school diploma, an
"A" in a subject that they struggled in, a college acceptance letter,
or a job in a field that I knew they loved even when they were elementary
students.
Yet,
I also know that there are students who learned in spite of my less than
perfect efforts, and even those who I missed along the way. These stories are
every bit as powerful as the positive ones, but cause significant heartache and
even the questioning of my abilities as an educator. Hearing about a former
student in the news, or hearing that they didn't make it through school, were
trapped in some negative path or otherwise failed to reach the potential that
exists in every child is incredibly painful. Teaching is truly an emotional
profession filled with all of the joy and pain that come with experiencing the
struggles and successes of hundreds of students and their families over the
years.
All
of that makes it profoundly disturbing to see what is currently happening to
our public schools in America.
In an effort to make our schools accountable to everyone we have made them less
accountable to those who really need them. We hear all the time that our
schools are failing, our educators are self-interested and unsupportive of
students, and that we need to make "reforms" to schools to make them
competitive, successful and to close the gaps that exist between groups of
students. This isn't to say that we don't need to continually strive to improve
the quality of our public schools, and that we don't see the same disturbing
gaps between groups in our schools that exist in our society as a whole.
However, if we recognize that reality, we must then work to identify ways to
make positive change happen for all of our students.
This
is the ultimate question that everyone in public schools face on a daily basis,
but it isn't really a new one for public educators. The challenges that
poverty, mental health concerns, differing abilities and disabilities along
with positives like the richness in diversity of culture, experience and
background of our students all mesh together in our schools on a daily basis.
The difficulties that our society as a whole is facing come into our classroom
and impact the ways that our students work and learn together in a myriad of
ways. Yet, we've always had poverty, we've always had different learning styles
and diversity is one of the hallmarks of American society. What is different is
the level of expectation that we are holding our students, educators and
schools to.
Of
course we should have high expectations for everyone in our public schools. We
should hold ourselves to the highest standards and work to achieve the best of
all possible outcomes for every student. That isn't an issue of contention in
our dialog around public education in 2015 America. The issues at hand are;
How do we achieve the best results for all students, and how do we hold those
who work and learn in our schools accountable?
To
answer these questions we have created complex systems and multiple tools that
are supposed to serve the purpose of monitoring student progress and to hold
schools accountable for providing the best possible opportunities for our
students. Yet, we have continually "failed" to achieve the results we
seek. Despite the intense focus on improving outcomes and closing achievement
gaps for students over the past decades, we have seen the gaps remain the same
or even widen in places. In fact, the progress that was being made as we moved
out of the legalized segregation of our schools has been reversed by an
overemphasis on testing, standardization and a return to a system of schools
that are at least as, if not more segregated than they were in the pre-Civil
Rights Movement period of our history.
I've
only been teaching since the mid-1990's, but in this relatively short time
period I have begun to feel the full effect of the "reform" efforts
on my own teaching, and have seen the effect that it has on my students. The
problems that have been identified by standardized testing and the gaps that
were "revealed" (although anyone paying attention knew they existed prior
to the wave of testing that grew out of legislation like NCLB) spawned an
effort to "reform" or "fix" education so that we could both
compete on a global scale, as well as offer equity in opportunity for all
students here in America. These reforms were instituted by "experts,"
usually from outside the community of professional educators and hinged on
quantifying student progress in order to measure the competence of all involved
in the educational process.
The
resulting onslaught of evaluating, testing and standardizing our public schools
has undermined public confidence in our schools and weakened any efforts at
really reforming our practices, policies and educational procedures. We have
moved from a relatively unstructured system of educator licensing and
evaluation to an incredibly complex system that threatens to collapse under its
own weight, even before it is fully implemented. Educators now spend hours
entering "data" and "evidence" about their work, rather
than actually working to improve their practice. All of this is made possible
by the efforts to demonize and scapegoat public educators for the failings of a
system that is societal in nature. We no longer assume that educators are
working hard and doing their best, but instead operate under the premise that
we need to monitor their every move and question every action and decision they
make.
Not
only are we changing how we evaluate educators, but we are also changing how we
educate and train them. No longer are educators trusted to make decisions about
curriculum or about how to manage their classrooms. Instead we are now given
programs, scripts and guidelines that restrict our options when working with
our students. Layers and layers of bureaucratic red tape, checklists and
requirements have been added to our jobs and the result is less time focused on
students and more on "checking the right boxes."
Last Wednesday, my son, like so many youngsters around the
country, began his second year of instruction at a local middle school tucked
away in suburban southern California.
Though the name...
dailykos.com
This
false accountability has lead to some unfortunate and harmful events. Educators
shouldn't cheat on tests, but they also shouldn't be put in the situation where
the tests they are administering are such high stakes in nature. If we try and
run education like a business, we will end up with our educators acting like
businessmen. Is that what we want and need for our students? Educators rarely,
if ever, enter the field for money and linking our students' performance to
financial gain is wrong for so many reasons.
Watch the hilarious video.
washingtonpost.com
here is no doubt that cheating occurred in Atlanta Public
Schools (APS), and that it was systemic, pervasive and involved dozens of
educators across many schools. The fact that there was extreme pressure placed
on educators to obtain higher...
empathyeducates.org
This
increased emphasis on testing and accountability has changed the climate in our
schools and negatively impacted our students. In order to maintain the
confidentiality of the students I've worked with over the years I will refrain
from offering specifics, but I can think of countless examples of tears,
frustration, feelings of inadequacy and other negative impacts that testing has
on individual students. Throw in the lost teaching time, the extra expenses
caused by testing to schools, the failures in technology and inane/inaccurate
questions, and the fact that I rarely learn anything new about my students and
testing becomes more than just an inconvenience. It is destroying our schools
and harming our students. This type of testing is designed to identify
weaknesses and to have a number of students fail, not to improve outcomes or
increase equity. They occur under a veil
of secrecy and are divisive, intimidating and coercive.
We’re being silenced and intimidated to protect an industry
that is of dubious quality and obscene...
gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com
The companies that create the most important state and
national exams also publish textbooks that contain many of the answers.
Unfortunately, low-income school districts can’t afford to buy them.
theatlantic.com
The
other piece of the puzzle is the standardization of our curriculum and the
profiteering that occurs due to the adoption of the Common Core State
Standards. Once again we see an educational necessity turned into a weapon to
be wielded against public schools and public educators. Just like we need some
assessments to guide our instruction and evaluate our students, we know that we
need to have some standards to base our evaluations on and to insure that our
students are progressing. The problem isn't entirely in the standards, but
rather in the way they were created (without meaningful educator input), their developmental
appropriateness (especially at the younger grades), and the tying of their
implementation with a series of assessments and curriculum that are sold to
schools and that pad the pockets of companies who have little investment in the
success of actual students.
I’d rather be a noble unicorn than a mindless puppet. Dan
Juneau, late of the sometimes evil empire known as the Louisiana Association of
Business and Industry,
theadvocate.com
This letter was written by a first grade teacher in upstate
Néw York: She writes: (Un)Intended Consequences Today was the first day of the
NYS ELA tests. I must state right from the outset that my ...
dianeravitch.net
A teacher in upstate New
York wrote me to say that the state English language
arts test for 8th grade (written by Pearson) contained a passage that his
students had read a week earlier---in a Pears...
dianeravitch.net
These
so called "reforms" have increased the tension in our schools and
changed the public dialog about public education. They point a finger at the
existing system and claim it is failing, while at the same time not offering
viable solutions, and actually opening the door to the destruction of our
public school system through privatization of our schools and other systems
like vouchers. We know there are problems and we know we need to do better, but
professional educators need to have a voice and to have influence in the
changes that are made. Instead we are seeing educational leaders and others
with decision making power take positions that directly or indirectly support those who would
eliminate public education.
Multiple Choice: The normal schedule at your child’s school
will be disrupted for several days while the school administers a standardized
test to all students. You think the test is a pointless wa...
edhughesschoolblog.wordpress.com
Our
families are beginning to see the need to take action. I'm proud to say that my
school had one of the highest percentages of students opt out of our most
recent statewide exam. Agree or disagree, these actions force us to discuss what is happening around public education in Wisconsin and nationally.
Some parents are opting their children out of the state’s
new standardized achievement test, largely to protest what they see as
excessive testing and the use of scores to judge teachers and schools.
jsonline.com|By Erin Richards
Educator
unions are beginning to see the value in addressing these issues in addition to
the more traditional workplace and benefit issues they have dealt with. We know
that individual educators are already acting in defense of their students and
they are pushing their unions and professional organizations to follow their
lead.
PAULA DOCKERY: They earned the right to say, ‘I told you
so!’
miamiherald.com
Often painted as obstacles to improving schools, the unions
now find common ground with conservative leaders and education reform
advocates.
nytimes.com|By KATE TAYLOR
In
the end we can all agree that we need to continue to work and improve our
educational system. The differences emerge in just how we accomplish this. We
need to make sure that we are aware that some voices in the debate have little
interest in having a majority of students succeed. There are many voices that
speak only for individual students, small groups, or even private business
entities. This explains why the current, corporate driven "reform, has
failed to meet the needs of students and close existing opportunity and
achievement gaps. Instead of focusing on students they are intent on driving an
agenda of privatization and educational privateering.
The
time is ripe for a new wave of reform to emerge. One where educators (and their
unions), communities, advocacy groups, families and students unite to push our
public education system in new directions and to new heights of success. As a
nation we have the resources and the abilities to make this happen. Now it is
up to all of us to become informed and engaged to truly reform all of our
schools to insure opportunity and equity for all.
