De-legitimizing public education /Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer

[Demeter]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/de-legitimizing-public-educati.html

The quality of American education is going to get worse. Count on it. And contrary to the conventional wisdom, the main reason isn’t going to be the loss of funding accompanying economic hard times.

Step One: Start with what was once a relatively simple educational system. (For me, it was a one-room school with 16 or so kids ranging in age from about 6 to 15, and a teacher who, it was taken for granted by the community, was a professional who knew what she was doing.)

Step Two: Close the school, build a big one, buy school buses, open a district office, and hire administrators to tell teachers what they can and can’t do.

Step Three: When problems with the new, more complicated system develop, expand the administrative pyramid, with each successive layer of authority knowing less about educating than the layer below it.

Step Four: As problems escalate, expand the bureaucracy, moving decision-making ever higher up the pyramid until state and then federal politicians make all the important calls.

Step Five: Give corporate America - the Gates, Broads, Waltons, etc. - control of the politicians who control the bureaucracy that controls the administrators who control the teachers.

Step Six: Pay no attention as the rich who, enamored of market forces, in love with the idea of privatizing schools, and attracted by the half-trillion dollars a year America spends on education, use the media to destroy confidence in public education.

Step Seven: As a confidence-destroying strategy, zero in on teachers. Say that they hate change and played a major role in the de-industrialization of America and the decline of the American Empire.

Step Eight: As the de-professionalization of teaching and the down-grading of teachers progress, point to the resultant poor school performance as proof of the need for centralized control of education.

So, what’s next?

MORE AT LINK

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[LARED]

2. The problem starts at step 2

Solution is to find a way to return to step 1, or something very similar.

[Igel]

7. Step 1 was also a problem.

It was taken for granted the teacher was a professional. That didn't mean much at the time and they had no credentialing or standards, no set or recommended curriculum. You could kick kids out, truancy wasn't a defined term, and if your kid didn't learn to read after 6 years, maybe you and others would hire a replacement.

Things were always better in the far off Golden Age.

Lots of teachers say it would be better to do this. Then again, while I've seen many teachers saying they personally didn't really know how to teach 10 years ago, I've very seldom seen any teacher who didn't know best in the present--what "really works," what "their" kids "really need," how to make the system "work." Usually they see themselves as lone points of competence in a sea of incompetents--who also, incidentally, see themselves as lone points of competence in a sea of incompetents. Only when you get them complaining about the parents, the kids, or the "administration" do they perceive the innate wisdom of their peers in reciting back to them precisely what they already believe.

[fatbuckel]

3. I understand why teachers and their friends always play the"poor teacher" card but...

You would think they would be smart enough to realize that constantly drumming on the same talking points doesn't and hasn't worked.

[jody]

4. Step X, grant more education doctorates to people who know zero about research and education and

let them establish policies and mandate procedures that ignore basic teaching requirements.

Every second of every class room day is already used so anyone who touts spending more money to improve education must answer two simple questions.

1. What new material will be added and what old material eliminated?

2. What new teaching methods will be adopted and what old methods abolished?

Then prove the proposed changes will produce the claimed benefits in test scores.

[Demeter]

5. You Betcha!

That started in the 60's...and gave traction to all the "improvers".

[knitter4democracy]

6. *coughs* Education consultants.

We're neck-deep in consultants at our school (haven't met AYP yet). It's all Marzano, Marzano, have we mentioned Marzano yet? Kagan, think-pair-share, cooperative learning, blah, blah, blah.

So, they are working on adopting new methods at the state level and eliminating old ones. It's just annoying, though, as each teacher does better with different styles and methods.

As for material, that's also getting settled at the state level.

[jody]

8. Those with the right-stuff teach, those with minimum ability administer, those with neither consult

or so it seems. :shrug:

[knitter4democracy]

12. That's pretty close to my experience.

I had to stop reading the required Marzano book when it described in minute detail why we need to teach students to compare and how to do so. I kid you not. It was either stop reading, stab my eyes out, or throw the book across the room and then set fire to it. I haven't been able to start reading it again since, even though we're supposed to.

We're supposed to get another Kagan book on how to have kids work in partners and small groups. Um, yay?

[Scottybeamer70]

9. Consultants!!!!

Had a "consultant" come into my classroom one time to "show" me how to teach
a lesson. The junior high students laughed her out of the room. Never saw
her again!! So much for consultants!!

[MichiganVote]

10. Step Nine: Globalize the access to education, the funds for education and the rewards for education

Eliminate all local control

[txlibdem]

11. Total freedom for teachers seems like a good idea, until you return to reality

My "science" teacher, who was also our gym teacher, told us "I'm supposed to teach you about this evolution crap but I'm not going to do it because I know what the bible says about where we came from." He then assured us that nobody would get a lower grade for missing any of those questions on the test; he'd toss out all of those questions.

Yeah, I want teachers deciding what "teaching method" they want to use, what "works best" for them.:sarcasm: