December
Dear readers,
I had a wonderful ten day trip to the west coast, and feel—cautiously—optimistic about "surviving" this dreadful period of history. Sort of. There were so many wonderful young educators and students at the annual Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum in San Francisco that we all left determined to keep the organization alive. Despite dismal sources of external funding. Instead we decided to raise the money person by person—from the ranks of friends and supporters within and around our work itself. We hope to raise $150,000 by spring—and half by the end of January.
So, first of all. Donate!!! https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=32995
Any amount will do, but… We would like a bunch of $1,000 pluses amongst the many lesser sums. Our hope is to create a new kind of reform movement based on the reformers closest to the action (and their friends), rather than on grants from Foundations for projects. We hope the latter will continue to provide interesting work for us to engage in, but that we will not have to count on such foundation funding to keep a national presence going and the have our annual Fall Forum. We even hope to do the latter on a less lavish basis so that more of our teachers, parents and students can join us.
Put aside November 11-12, 2011, in Providence, RI. We're going back to our roots for this event.
What has always been unique about the Coalition is that while it rests its work on ten common principles, its schools have tried to solve the problems principles pose in their own unique ways. There isn't ONE model. Thus schools that also belong to Expeditionary Learning, High Tech Hi and The MET (for example) fit under our umbrella, but not always vice-versa. These other organizations are largely "service" organizations, with a particular model while CES, from the start, hoped to be useful to its member schools through its regional centers, and otherwise to represent the heart of Ted Sizer's original work nationally.
We need, more than ever, to demonstrate through the work of these many networks and centers that the "ideas" behind our work represent an alternate paradigm to the "no excuses," zero tolerance, test-driven, boot-camp style of education that has lately taken the fancy of many "reformers"—especially for poor students of color.
Furthermore, while we all support public education, CES has always included among its ranks many independent schools, and later charters, as well as locally based public education. We have never taken a stand on issues of school size—although CES recommended that the odds were on the side of being small enough to personalize relationships between key participants. Ditto regarding choice. Many of our schools are geographically zoned, non-choice schools and some are schools of choice. We include rural, suburban and urban schools. While we are over-weighted in terms of demographics toward low-income students of color, some of our schools are well-to-do suburban schools. As John Dewey reminded us, what the wealthiest and wises want for their children we should demand for all children. (Obama/Duncan: take note)
We treasure this range, and also respect the reasons why many reform efforts have focused on particular disadvantaged communities whose situation is much direr than schools "in general." But Ted Sizer's work also pointed to the emptiness and poverty of intellectual life within most solidly White middle class schools. He was seeking a revolution in schooling that extended to all. In fact, some Coalition schools are not even in the USA! But they all try to get to the heart of what he believed were essential intellectual habits needed for a democratic society. Go to our site for more. http://www.essentialschools.org/
While out west I also promoted Playing for Keeps. If you haven't bought it, it's an easy and cheap read, so do it right now. Just click here. http://store.tcpress.com/0807750956.shtml
And then finally I visited friends in Portland. I saw my very dear old colleague from Bank Street and work in East Harlem—Happie Byers. She says to tell everyone "not to worry about what you should do, just do what is right there in front of you needing to be done." Neither her granddaughter, Jessie, nor I can quite get the words exactly right, but we agree that was the message—and we intend to pursue her advice.
I also saw Alan Dichter and Vivian Orlen and their two fast growing sons. Alan is full of optimism, as usual. He is not necessarily therefore to be believed. And Vivian has been the principal since September of a 1,600 student neighborhood high school—Grant High School. I spent a day there watching her work. I was envious. She is having fun and the staff and kids I met with seem intrigued and delighted!
So, I left for home on a high, and intend to try to stay up there for a little while each day. But it is not easy work. The news from New York City regarding the new Chancellor is so appalling that I have not yet gotten my hands around what it augurs. We are entering a time when The Oligarchy seems poised to take over everything. And be responsible for nothing.
Deborah
Friday, December 3, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Something New Under the Sun
Dear whoever,
Puzzlements. Why all this hooplah about reforms that are clearly not working? If "open education" was dismissed based on so-called science (I never did know what evidence they had), how can this new wave of reform be picking up more steam in the midst of a blitz of data proving it wrong-headed?
Assuming, as I have for some time, that the current "reform" mania around public education is the offspring of not one but at least four, five, et al currents, all alive and well in the political climate of the past few decades, can we actually stop it, or even slow it down by noting that it defies reality—and surely all sound research. Maybe not, but it is worth a try.
Yes, the facts are blithely ignored by quite intelligent and well-meaning people, but maybe a siege of facts will finally get heard. .
Examples of what is ignored:
1) If unions are the problem how come the states with no teachers unions have not shown any evidence of being even as innovative as places like NYC or Chicago or LA where teacher's unions have been generally cast as the enemies. Maybe what has united many is just the chance to eliminate one of the strongest unions left in America. Having gotten rid of most unions serving the private sector and made organizing new unions nearly impossible, there is only one strong union base left: the public sector.
In the past half century, as Richard Rothstein of EPI has documented in Income Stagnation and Inequality, the percentage of workers who are members of unions is below that of any other democratic modern nation—and less than half of what it was at its peak. Given that most public sector unions are not allowed to strike and must pay heavy financial penalties if they do, their political influence is what they have long been focused on. If they are eliminated as a source of financial help to candidates and above all of organized manpower on behalf of candidates, then corporate money—freed from all constraints by recent court decisions—can truly run public life with virtually no organized opposition.
If we confront far more inequality than at any prior time in our history, and if we truly believed all that anti-communist propaganda about the virtues of a strong middle class, free trade-unionism and free-enterprise, we would be worried about throwing out the first two and resting it all on the third. The centralization of media power in the hands of a few people of international wealth and the internationalization of much of America's private enterprise also undermines even the liberal pro-capitalist western propaganda of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Everybody but "the workers of the world" seem to have united.
It fits.
2) It also fits a climate of glorification of "individual responsibility," while in fact, as David Brooks notes in the NY Times, real personal responsibility has been thoroughly trashed. Who paid ANY price for their intentional disregard of the public good in the Wall Street and Housing boom, et al? A lady was executed in South Carolina the other day for plotting the death of her husband. But the death of our economy and the enrichment of a small group of con artists has gone almost entirely unpunished—except the punishment inflicted on the victims.
I liked David Brooks' column (Sept. 24th) on the "responsibility deficit". I might even order the Philip Howard book he recommends. Where inequity does not make it a farce, I too want government to lay its hands off. My default position is always one of free choice. But when 2% of Americans hold so much power over 98%, "free," choice is not free. Brook's notes that teachers "have to obey a steady stream of mandates that govern everything from how they treat an unruly child to the way they teach." Then we accuse them of failing to be held accountable!
I am even against involuntary schooling, in the abstract. But in the world we live in I know who will and who will not become educated better to their own self-interests. Maybe with more attention to the potential of "public" discourse we might even begin to honestly talk about what we mean by being held "accountable"—and to whom. Jamie Vollmer (in Schools Cannot Do It Alone), who comes at this from a businessman's background making ice cream, notes: "We are witnessing a campaign to annihilate the emotional and intellectual ties that bind the American people to their public schools. And it is working."
The arguments of the disparate forces that joined on behalf of the Duncan agenda—from the strict free-enterprisers to the civil rights activists-- needs to be considered. One piece of good news. Among many of those attracted by the idea of "getting tough" on our schools on behalf of the underdogs—especially children of color—there is a shift that I can detect. What we are not seeking is going back to pre-NCLB/Nation at Risk practices, and our arguments need to be clear on this point.
Puzzlements are the beginnings of wisdom, as I begin to unravel this dilemma.
Deborah
Puzzlements. Why all this hooplah about reforms that are clearly not working? If "open education" was dismissed based on so-called science (I never did know what evidence they had), how can this new wave of reform be picking up more steam in the midst of a blitz of data proving it wrong-headed?
Assuming, as I have for some time, that the current "reform" mania around public education is the offspring of not one but at least four, five, et al currents, all alive and well in the political climate of the past few decades, can we actually stop it, or even slow it down by noting that it defies reality—and surely all sound research. Maybe not, but it is worth a try.
Yes, the facts are blithely ignored by quite intelligent and well-meaning people, but maybe a siege of facts will finally get heard. .
Examples of what is ignored:
1) If unions are the problem how come the states with no teachers unions have not shown any evidence of being even as innovative as places like NYC or Chicago or LA where teacher's unions have been generally cast as the enemies. Maybe what has united many is just the chance to eliminate one of the strongest unions left in America. Having gotten rid of most unions serving the private sector and made organizing new unions nearly impossible, there is only one strong union base left: the public sector.
In the past half century, as Richard Rothstein of EPI has documented in Income Stagnation and Inequality, the percentage of workers who are members of unions is below that of any other democratic modern nation—and less than half of what it was at its peak. Given that most public sector unions are not allowed to strike and must pay heavy financial penalties if they do, their political influence is what they have long been focused on. If they are eliminated as a source of financial help to candidates and above all of organized manpower on behalf of candidates, then corporate money—freed from all constraints by recent court decisions—can truly run public life with virtually no organized opposition.
If we confront far more inequality than at any prior time in our history, and if we truly believed all that anti-communist propaganda about the virtues of a strong middle class, free trade-unionism and free-enterprise, we would be worried about throwing out the first two and resting it all on the third. The centralization of media power in the hands of a few people of international wealth and the internationalization of much of America's private enterprise also undermines even the liberal pro-capitalist western propaganda of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Everybody but "the workers of the world" seem to have united.
It fits.
2) It also fits a climate of glorification of "individual responsibility," while in fact, as David Brooks notes in the NY Times, real personal responsibility has been thoroughly trashed. Who paid ANY price for their intentional disregard of the public good in the Wall Street and Housing boom, et al? A lady was executed in South Carolina the other day for plotting the death of her husband. But the death of our economy and the enrichment of a small group of con artists has gone almost entirely unpunished—except the punishment inflicted on the victims.
I liked David Brooks' column (Sept. 24th) on the "responsibility deficit". I might even order the Philip Howard book he recommends. Where inequity does not make it a farce, I too want government to lay its hands off. My default position is always one of free choice. But when 2% of Americans hold so much power over 98%, "free," choice is not free. Brook's notes that teachers "have to obey a steady stream of mandates that govern everything from how they treat an unruly child to the way they teach." Then we accuse them of failing to be held accountable!
I am even against involuntary schooling, in the abstract. But in the world we live in I know who will and who will not become educated better to their own self-interests. Maybe with more attention to the potential of "public" discourse we might even begin to honestly talk about what we mean by being held "accountable"—and to whom. Jamie Vollmer (in Schools Cannot Do It Alone), who comes at this from a businessman's background making ice cream, notes: "We are witnessing a campaign to annihilate the emotional and intellectual ties that bind the American people to their public schools. And it is working."
The arguments of the disparate forces that joined on behalf of the Duncan agenda—from the strict free-enterprisers to the civil rights activists-- needs to be considered. One piece of good news. Among many of those attracted by the idea of "getting tough" on our schools on behalf of the underdogs—especially children of color—there is a shift that I can detect. What we are not seeking is going back to pre-NCLB/Nation at Risk practices, and our arguments need to be clear on this point.
Puzzlements are the beginnings of wisdom, as I begin to unravel this dilemma.
Deborah
Friday, September 3, 2010
The More Tests Change......
I am still sorting those boxes full of old letters, records and newspaper clippings! It is hard not to keep stopping and examining the past more carefully. In an odd way it makes me feel better to realize that "I've heard that song before." The education headlines are indeed the old familiar score (see below). Of course, it could also be discouraging. But it reinforces my determination to sustain the work based on the data that matters most: the actual life histories of the human beings schools reach. "You can't take that away from me," I remind myself. In the end we each have to make some judgments about what "counts" most to us.
Meanwhile, we keep "counting" in ways that defy quite ordinary common sense. Examples:
[Headline] City Cheats on Reading Test: "The mayor has turned the Chancellor's smashing two-year increase in the citywide test into 'the single most important achievement' of his administration." From the Village Voice. By Wayne Barrett.,
And furthermore,
"It was not surprising that the city's scores had risen dramatically… the test the city uses is designed to do that… There is some concern that the children learn the art of passing tests, according to Ida Echavarria, director of testing" reports the NY Times.
Both the above from June 1981.
Just days before the 1981 scandal broke, even astute Albert Shanker's column in the NY Times was blasting testing critics and praising NYC's high scores, noting proudly that Washington D.C. students had made similarly big gains. Yes, it requires, he said, "special efforts to overcome" poverty, but "as the recent scores in NYC and D.C. show… the greatest gains were made by minorities and the poor in some of our very toughest neighborhood schools." No further comment after the expose.
I arrived in NYC in 1967 and had been an unwitting supporter of testing as a parent, teacher and local school board member. I was even part of a cabal (led by Ann Cook and Herb Mack) to "expose" Chicago's secret test scores a few years earlier. I was, like Diane Ravitch, a believer. It took experiences that involved both my own children and those I taught in central Harlem to wake me up. The kids and their scores did not match what I knew about them, and NYC's wild fluctuations led me to became an amateur expert on standardized testing. (Go to deborahmeier.com for a list of my writings on standardized testing.)
For example, between 1974 and 1975 scores took an amazing turn: going from 33.8% reading on or above grade level to 43.3% in 1975. A year later the headline in the NY Times noted "A Slight Decline in Reading in New York Schools," although the Times noted that the decline was from 1975 which had shown "surprisingly high achievement by pupils compared with earlier years." What changed? The test publisher. So, the next year the Board of Education contracted with still another test publisher. Guess what? Next year: we all did better.
In 1979 the NY Times front page noted that "City Pupils Remain Behind in Reading." But there was improvement. Although a different test was used that year so comparisons were hard to make, said reporter Ed Fiske.
In 1984 Gene Maeroff noted that more than 50% were now reading above grade! Victory? An improvement in less than 10 years from below 40% to over 50% reading on grade level. None of my high school teaching friends saw any sign of change in their students who had so miraculously scored better during their elementary years.
A year later Joyce Purnick reported "Reading Scores Fall in City for the First Time in 5 Years" The Chancellor said "that reading experts had told him the version of the test given this year was more difficult… but suggested that the teacher shortage may also have contribute to the dip in scores." The Chancellor said "he would meet with a committee to determine… whether to use a different test entirely in the future."
And so it has gone for the 43 years I have been a NYC school test watcher. I was hardly surprised then to read the headlines a few weeks ago that informed us that in fact the latest test scores that the Mayor touted during his reelection campaign were… inaccurate. In fact, the latest data shows that we are more or less back where we started when Bloomberg became Mayor 8 years ago. The only difference this time is that the dips usually coincide with the appointment of a new Chancellor and Mayor Klein is still with us. But in the old days NYC controlled its own tests!
Dizzy from trying to follow these ups and downs?
Remember, these publicized scores went along with a lot of "deep" editorial analysis, plus hours of precious time spent in every school and district carefully dissecting each up and down by class, grade, teacher and kid. Teachers and schools were inundated with sure-fire commercial test prep programs—for doing better next year. And if you are a school teacher now, this should sound familiar.
Given that the tests used were all produced by equally reputable test makers, who promised that their tests were "normed" with expensive and extensive pre-testing, guaranteeing a high degree of reliability and reported measurement error, and built to measure the exactly same thing—how is this bizarre history possible?
When the switch was made from "norm-referenced tests" to so-called "criterion-reference" tests, I jokingly noted that this was another word for "politically" normed tests—with benchmarks set to meet a particular political agenda. But, since I suspected the old tests were also influenced by politics, criterion-referenced seemed a step forward. However, they came with another decision—to report scores simply as a 1, 2 ,3 or 4. Period. The difference between a high 3 and a low 3 being indistinguishable, and thus a move from a 3 to 4 might indicate almost no change—except in headlines.
The climax of this story? Last fall, 2009—before the Mayoral election—we witnessed the claim that another rise had taken place in the 8-year upward curve of test scores under the Mayor's reign. But—another report this summer has uncovered a new truth—actually test scores this year were back where they were before Bloomberg became Mayor 8 years ago.
I hope this explains why my expertise has convinced me not to believe data collected by any city or state or Federal DOE (domestic or international)—re attendance, drop-outs or so-called achievement. I know what goes on behind the scenes—at what hour one takes attendance matters, what constitutes a drop-out depends on how you record it. Like "achievement" they are equally subject to Campbell's Law. The data declines in value the more high stakes attached to them.
I am not anti-data—but I want the real stuff. More on that next time.
Deborah
Meanwhile, we keep "counting" in ways that defy quite ordinary common sense. Examples:
[Headline] City Cheats on Reading Test: "The mayor has turned the Chancellor's smashing two-year increase in the citywide test into 'the single most important achievement' of his administration." From the Village Voice. By Wayne Barrett.,
And furthermore,
"It was not surprising that the city's scores had risen dramatically… the test the city uses is designed to do that… There is some concern that the children learn the art of passing tests, according to Ida Echavarria, director of testing" reports the NY Times.
Both the above from June 1981.
Just days before the 1981 scandal broke, even astute Albert Shanker's column in the NY Times was blasting testing critics and praising NYC's high scores, noting proudly that Washington D.C. students had made similarly big gains. Yes, it requires, he said, "special efforts to overcome" poverty, but "as the recent scores in NYC and D.C. show… the greatest gains were made by minorities and the poor in some of our very toughest neighborhood schools." No further comment after the expose.
I arrived in NYC in 1967 and had been an unwitting supporter of testing as a parent, teacher and local school board member. I was even part of a cabal (led by Ann Cook and Herb Mack) to "expose" Chicago's secret test scores a few years earlier. I was, like Diane Ravitch, a believer. It took experiences that involved both my own children and those I taught in central Harlem to wake me up. The kids and their scores did not match what I knew about them, and NYC's wild fluctuations led me to became an amateur expert on standardized testing. (Go to deborahmeier.com for a list of my writings on standardized testing.)
For example, between 1974 and 1975 scores took an amazing turn: going from 33.8% reading on or above grade level to 43.3% in 1975. A year later the headline in the NY Times noted "A Slight Decline in Reading in New York Schools," although the Times noted that the decline was from 1975 which had shown "surprisingly high achievement by pupils compared with earlier years." What changed? The test publisher. So, the next year the Board of Education contracted with still another test publisher. Guess what? Next year: we all did better.
In 1979 the NY Times front page noted that "City Pupils Remain Behind in Reading." But there was improvement. Although a different test was used that year so comparisons were hard to make, said reporter Ed Fiske.
In 1984 Gene Maeroff noted that more than 50% were now reading above grade! Victory? An improvement in less than 10 years from below 40% to over 50% reading on grade level. None of my high school teaching friends saw any sign of change in their students who had so miraculously scored better during their elementary years.
A year later Joyce Purnick reported "Reading Scores Fall in City for the First Time in 5 Years" The Chancellor said "that reading experts had told him the version of the test given this year was more difficult… but suggested that the teacher shortage may also have contribute to the dip in scores." The Chancellor said "he would meet with a committee to determine… whether to use a different test entirely in the future."
And so it has gone for the 43 years I have been a NYC school test watcher. I was hardly surprised then to read the headlines a few weeks ago that informed us that in fact the latest test scores that the Mayor touted during his reelection campaign were… inaccurate. In fact, the latest data shows that we are more or less back where we started when Bloomberg became Mayor 8 years ago. The only difference this time is that the dips usually coincide with the appointment of a new Chancellor and Mayor Klein is still with us. But in the old days NYC controlled its own tests!
Dizzy from trying to follow these ups and downs?
Remember, these publicized scores went along with a lot of "deep" editorial analysis, plus hours of precious time spent in every school and district carefully dissecting each up and down by class, grade, teacher and kid. Teachers and schools were inundated with sure-fire commercial test prep programs—for doing better next year. And if you are a school teacher now, this should sound familiar.
Given that the tests used were all produced by equally reputable test makers, who promised that their tests were "normed" with expensive and extensive pre-testing, guaranteeing a high degree of reliability and reported measurement error, and built to measure the exactly same thing—how is this bizarre history possible?
When the switch was made from "norm-referenced tests" to so-called "criterion-reference" tests, I jokingly noted that this was another word for "politically" normed tests—with benchmarks set to meet a particular political agenda. But, since I suspected the old tests were also influenced by politics, criterion-referenced seemed a step forward. However, they came with another decision—to report scores simply as a 1, 2 ,3 or 4. Period. The difference between a high 3 and a low 3 being indistinguishable, and thus a move from a 3 to 4 might indicate almost no change—except in headlines.
The climax of this story? Last fall, 2009—before the Mayoral election—we witnessed the claim that another rise had taken place in the 8-year upward curve of test scores under the Mayor's reign. But—another report this summer has uncovered a new truth—actually test scores this year were back where they were before Bloomberg became Mayor 8 years ago.
I hope this explains why my expertise has convinced me not to believe data collected by any city or state or Federal DOE (domestic or international)—re attendance, drop-outs or so-called achievement. I know what goes on behind the scenes—at what hour one takes attendance matters, what constitutes a drop-out depends on how you record it. Like "achievement" they are equally subject to Campbell's Law. The data declines in value the more high stakes attached to them.
I am not anti-data—but I want the real stuff. More on that next time.
Deborah
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
What Price Control?
Dear friends,
Organizing life is almost more time-consuming than living it! I'm overwhelmed with pieces of paper that I can't bare to throw out, but can't bare to keep. So, I need to organize them! But as I do so, more and more appear.
My daughter-in-law, Tricia, discovered a huge file full of old letters to and from me going back to my teens. The Lily Archive at Indiana University wants them but first I have to see what makes sense for them to archive. I have spent hours at it and already discovered two letters that I immediately tore up, and a few I put aside in a "to be thrown out" pile. Then there are those that have sentimental value to me but do not belong in an archive dedicated to teaching. In those days before e-mail, and before telephoning seemed cheap enough to make long long-distance calls, many of the letters are long arguments for and against particular ideas.
I had forgotten about the Antioch co-op job in an Indianapolis Day Care Center. I did it because I wanted to visit with my Uncle Marty and my cousins Jeremy and Daniel who lived there. It was clear that I was not a very responsive assistant teacher and was impatient with restless children who refused to go to sleep at nap time (when I could then read), and whose parent's came late (so I couldn't leave early). It definitely inspired me not to take any education courses when I got to the U of Chicago which I was urged to do as a married woman who might need a fall-back job.
Yet in fact becoming an accidental teacher opened up the world to me in intriguing ways. It altered the way I saw and heard, and the way I understood politics, history and human behavior! There's no subject that seemed "boring". My democratic leanings from childhood were strengthened as it became more and more obvious that 12 plus years of schooling was such a poor preparation for democracy. The strong-willed, skepticism that is essential alongside of the habit of seeing and feeling the world from different perspectives (call it empathy?) is precisely what schooling dulls rather than nurtures, what is stronger at age 5 than 15.
I reread a short speech Susan Sontag gave to Vassar graduates in 2005 and realized how strongly I identified with her admonition: "Don't allow yourself to be patronized, condescended to" and "Don't be afraid."
When I visit many "acclaimed schools" for poor children I'm struck by how hard the adults work at putting kids "in their place", at public humiliation and condescension. The way the children's families are too often talked about by school adults is unnerving. Yet school adults are also the object of a similar condescension. But the connection between the two is somehow lost.
Too many of our schools are organized around fear and thus the "solutions"/reforms are too. The details are similar to those that drive prisons. The unspoken motto from school to classroom design revolves around issues of control: what will happen if we don't control them? In the same way I was struck by how easily teachers are intimidated by the authorities who rule their lives, how much principals fear "downtown", and parents fear the teachers--and the teachers fear the parents! It isn't universal, but it is widespread. The common answer: tough love and "no excuses".
The old-fashioned eccentric teacher who locked herself and her kids in her "castle" has all but disappeared: along with the strong-willed teacher who could create an alternate environment.
What we have forgotten is that part of being a good citizen is being skillful at resisting authority, organizing "our side" on behalf of common interests. It is our faith in our superior numbers that may be called upon to trump the power of guns and money. Democracy is always a fragile ideal, probably never fully realizable. It requires strong feisty citizens with a sense of their "entitlement" and an awareness that democracy is an exercise in balanced power. Learning to exercise power is as important as learning to be cooperative, who knows there is another story worth hearing (excuses?), is prepared to compromise, see the world from many perspectives, and have a good sense of humor. Adults teach these conflicting traits to kids in part by example ideally. What may seem like petty requests to us may, for kids, be matters of honor and integrity. But not if we adults have grown accustomed to swallowing our honor.
I heard a rightwing Republican congressman (Steve King from Iowa) speaking on TV about the Second amendment. It is not, he said, about hunting or protecting ourselves individually. We need guns, he continued, so we can confront a tyrannous government. He happened to think we were on the brink of an Obama-dictatorship. He was right: in 1776 the rebels saw liberty as closely allied to our ability to challenge a dictator with an armed citizenry. He is wrong about those guns, but he is right that democracy is always endangered and has a tendency toward centralization of power in few and fewer hands that must be resisted. If not by guns, what is the alternative?
Resisting the centralization of schooling of who decides what my children are taught and where the school's moral code is spelled out requires being "armed" by the powers that come with citizenship. We need new words that distinguish the kind of heated argument that democracy arouses if its decisions matter from winner/loser arguments that are only an exercise in exerting power over others. We depend upon such arguments, we depend such compromises, we depend upon resistance. Yet there is only one public institution where these habits of heart and mind might be developed: our schools. It is a shift in our picture of the tasks of schooling. To produce a community in which the young are learning from those older and wiser about democracy will take time to invent. Such schooling habits will not spring into being overnight. We will need to develop norms that make arguments, resistance, skepticism and solidarity and a good laugh at ourselves tolerable, even cherished. It does not happen just in a course of Civics, but in all the activities of the school staff meeting, parent meetings, math classes, phys ed classes, music, and even the playground.
After I finish sorting all those letters, maybe I will have time to figure this out. Maybe soon I will be ready to prescribe how democracy is best taught. But probably not.
More another time.
Deborah
Organizing life is almost more time-consuming than living it! I'm overwhelmed with pieces of paper that I can't bare to throw out, but can't bare to keep. So, I need to organize them! But as I do so, more and more appear.
My daughter-in-law, Tricia, discovered a huge file full of old letters to and from me going back to my teens. The Lily Archive at Indiana University wants them but first I have to see what makes sense for them to archive. I have spent hours at it and already discovered two letters that I immediately tore up, and a few I put aside in a "to be thrown out" pile. Then there are those that have sentimental value to me but do not belong in an archive dedicated to teaching. In those days before e-mail, and before telephoning seemed cheap enough to make long long-distance calls, many of the letters are long arguments for and against particular ideas.
I had forgotten about the Antioch co-op job in an Indianapolis Day Care Center. I did it because I wanted to visit with my Uncle Marty and my cousins Jeremy and Daniel who lived there. It was clear that I was not a very responsive assistant teacher and was impatient with restless children who refused to go to sleep at nap time (when I could then read), and whose parent's came late (so I couldn't leave early). It definitely inspired me not to take any education courses when I got to the U of Chicago which I was urged to do as a married woman who might need a fall-back job.
Yet in fact becoming an accidental teacher opened up the world to me in intriguing ways. It altered the way I saw and heard, and the way I understood politics, history and human behavior! There's no subject that seemed "boring". My democratic leanings from childhood were strengthened as it became more and more obvious that 12 plus years of schooling was such a poor preparation for democracy. The strong-willed, skepticism that is essential alongside of the habit of seeing and feeling the world from different perspectives (call it empathy?) is precisely what schooling dulls rather than nurtures, what is stronger at age 5 than 15.
I reread a short speech Susan Sontag gave to Vassar graduates in 2005 and realized how strongly I identified with her admonition: "Don't allow yourself to be patronized, condescended to" and "Don't be afraid."
When I visit many "acclaimed schools" for poor children I'm struck by how hard the adults work at putting kids "in their place", at public humiliation and condescension. The way the children's families are too often talked about by school adults is unnerving. Yet school adults are also the object of a similar condescension. But the connection between the two is somehow lost.
Too many of our schools are organized around fear and thus the "solutions"/reforms are too. The details are similar to those that drive prisons. The unspoken motto from school to classroom design revolves around issues of control: what will happen if we don't control them? In the same way I was struck by how easily teachers are intimidated by the authorities who rule their lives, how much principals fear "downtown", and parents fear the teachers--and the teachers fear the parents! It isn't universal, but it is widespread. The common answer: tough love and "no excuses".
The old-fashioned eccentric teacher who locked herself and her kids in her "castle" has all but disappeared: along with the strong-willed teacher who could create an alternate environment.
What we have forgotten is that part of being a good citizen is being skillful at resisting authority, organizing "our side" on behalf of common interests. It is our faith in our superior numbers that may be called upon to trump the power of guns and money. Democracy is always a fragile ideal, probably never fully realizable. It requires strong feisty citizens with a sense of their "entitlement" and an awareness that democracy is an exercise in balanced power. Learning to exercise power is as important as learning to be cooperative, who knows there is another story worth hearing (excuses?), is prepared to compromise, see the world from many perspectives, and have a good sense of humor. Adults teach these conflicting traits to kids in part by example ideally. What may seem like petty requests to us may, for kids, be matters of honor and integrity. But not if we adults have grown accustomed to swallowing our honor.
I heard a rightwing Republican congressman (Steve King from Iowa) speaking on TV about the Second amendment. It is not, he said, about hunting or protecting ourselves individually. We need guns, he continued, so we can confront a tyrannous government. He happened to think we were on the brink of an Obama-dictatorship. He was right: in 1776 the rebels saw liberty as closely allied to our ability to challenge a dictator with an armed citizenry. He is wrong about those guns, but he is right that democracy is always endangered and has a tendency toward centralization of power in few and fewer hands that must be resisted. If not by guns, what is the alternative?
Resisting the centralization of schooling of who decides what my children are taught and where the school's moral code is spelled out requires being "armed" by the powers that come with citizenship. We need new words that distinguish the kind of heated argument that democracy arouses if its decisions matter from winner/loser arguments that are only an exercise in exerting power over others. We depend upon such arguments, we depend such compromises, we depend upon resistance. Yet there is only one public institution where these habits of heart and mind might be developed: our schools. It is a shift in our picture of the tasks of schooling. To produce a community in which the young are learning from those older and wiser about democracy will take time to invent. Such schooling habits will not spring into being overnight. We will need to develop norms that make arguments, resistance, skepticism and solidarity and a good laugh at ourselves tolerable, even cherished. It does not happen just in a course of Civics, but in all the activities of the school staff meeting, parent meetings, math classes, phys ed classes, music, and even the playground.
After I finish sorting all those letters, maybe I will have time to figure this out. Maybe soon I will be ready to prescribe how democracy is best taught. But probably not.
More another time.
Deborah
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The Conversation
Dear friends,
A whirlwind month visiting friends and colleagues around the country—from Maine to Denver. However, as usual I end up seeing more people who agree with me than disagree with me on the fundamentals of school reform. I had a chance in D.C. to talk to a friend of a friend who support Michelle Rhee’s reforms. I was dying to get into it, but as a guest I felt constrained and we dropped it quickly. What a shame. Was I right or wrong?
If we are to engage citizens with issues relating to educating the next generation of citizens, we have to get over our reluctance to talk about controversial issues. Maybe that is one reason we are, as Al Ramirez notes in last week Ed Week commentary, so eager to hand over our education policy to the federal government. Maybe it is not just the money they are bribing states with, but also a chance to get off the hook by appearing helpless? I think that appeals at times to teachers also. "Why blame me? I followed the recipe and if it did not produce the results you wanted, I'm not at fault."
Teachers are (alongside mothers) very prone to guilt for all the mistakes they made in the course of 6 hours, day after day. Hundreds of decisions each hour that may or may not have subtle or not so subtle ill-effects. I hated it when I made one of those "I should know better" mistakes on Friday at the end of the day. I had all weekend to stew about them, hoping I could undo it n Monday.
Maybe if the penalty was "just money," I could feel less upset about it? Fred Meier once said that he preferred playing card games for money, otherwise it seemed like he was playing for his honor.
Does cheating on the results make one feel less guilty? Probably not, but it makes one's honor a more private matter. Besides, I have discovered that people forget they fudged the data, and begin to boast about it as though it were real. Reporters, for example, boasted that the high school I was directing at the time, CPESS, had a 90% graduation rate before we graduated a single class. Did I correct them? It was so foolish that I let it pass…. Would I have tolerated such foolishness if the media had made public false bad results?
I have been following Tony Judt's memoirs in The Nation avidly. His skepticism about democracy's potential is refreshing. How can we argue about this more broadly than in the pages of The Nation? How about in school? How about a continuous curriculum that raises questions about democracy, that accepted Judt's bald statement that "democracy has always been a problem." One problem is that everyone now claims to be for it: Chinese, Burmese, South Africans, George Bush, Tea Party'ers as well as Obama and I. It is a "dangerously empty term" Judt argues. We "either re-educate" the public in some form of "public conversation or we will move toward what the ancient Greeks understood very well, which is that the closest system to democracy is popular authoritarianism." Dare we risk such a conversation in our schools?
Deborah
A whirlwind month visiting friends and colleagues around the country—from Maine to Denver. However, as usual I end up seeing more people who agree with me than disagree with me on the fundamentals of school reform. I had a chance in D.C. to talk to a friend of a friend who support Michelle Rhee’s reforms. I was dying to get into it, but as a guest I felt constrained and we dropped it quickly. What a shame. Was I right or wrong?
If we are to engage citizens with issues relating to educating the next generation of citizens, we have to get over our reluctance to talk about controversial issues. Maybe that is one reason we are, as Al Ramirez notes in last week Ed Week commentary, so eager to hand over our education policy to the federal government. Maybe it is not just the money they are bribing states with, but also a chance to get off the hook by appearing helpless? I think that appeals at times to teachers also. "Why blame me? I followed the recipe and if it did not produce the results you wanted, I'm not at fault."
Teachers are (alongside mothers) very prone to guilt for all the mistakes they made in the course of 6 hours, day after day. Hundreds of decisions each hour that may or may not have subtle or not so subtle ill-effects. I hated it when I made one of those "I should know better" mistakes on Friday at the end of the day. I had all weekend to stew about them, hoping I could undo it n Monday.
Maybe if the penalty was "just money," I could feel less upset about it? Fred Meier once said that he preferred playing card games for money, otherwise it seemed like he was playing for his honor.
Does cheating on the results make one feel less guilty? Probably not, but it makes one's honor a more private matter. Besides, I have discovered that people forget they fudged the data, and begin to boast about it as though it were real. Reporters, for example, boasted that the high school I was directing at the time, CPESS, had a 90% graduation rate before we graduated a single class. Did I correct them? It was so foolish that I let it pass…. Would I have tolerated such foolishness if the media had made public false bad results?
I have been following Tony Judt's memoirs in The Nation avidly. His skepticism about democracy's potential is refreshing. How can we argue about this more broadly than in the pages of The Nation? How about in school? How about a continuous curriculum that raises questions about democracy, that accepted Judt's bald statement that "democracy has always been a problem." One problem is that everyone now claims to be for it: Chinese, Burmese, South Africans, George Bush, Tea Party'ers as well as Obama and I. It is a "dangerously empty term" Judt argues. We "either re-educate" the public in some form of "public conversation or we will move toward what the ancient Greeks understood very well, which is that the closest system to democracy is popular authoritarianism." Dare we risk such a conversation in our schools?
Deborah
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Free Market Schooling
"This is a perilous moment. The individualist, greed-driven free-market ideology that both our major parties have pursued is at odds with what most Americans really care about....Working families and poor communities need and deserve help because the free market has failed to generate shared prosperity — its famous unseen hand has become a closed fist." Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, and I, agree. But the public seems just as suspicious—if not more so—about public institutions as the private ones. Thus the relative lack of alarm over the extraordinary shift in "ownership" of our public schools. We are witnessing more federal intervention at virtually all levels of schooling, more power in the hands of private wealth, and more "market-driven" decisions — at the same time! And there is almost no well-funded opposition, except for teacher unions who are then villainized as being anti-reform, self-interested, too protective of their bad apples.
What epitomizes the latest "true reform" is that it cuts off both teacher professional and parent/family judgment about what goes on in publicly-financed schools. Above all in urban areas, but overtime perhaps to rural and suburban communities too.
Even vouchers are creeping back; but there is no need for vouchers if the same interests and ideology can be served without any clear legislative decision to abandon "schooling as we know it." It has been slipped in—first as an experiment to shake off old habits. A charter here and there with a new idea that could appeal across geographic boundaries would open up our thinking, courage real innovation—influencing all schools. All it needs is: a friendly Mayor, a friendly President and weakened unions.
Let many flowers bloom, managed largely by private companies, including school chains serving as many pupils as the average school system does now, working under a broad state-wide and federal oversight and boards/trustees selected by the school's "founders." Caps? None, they argue. Only proponents of the current "drop-out factories" would want to slow this replacement down, charter fans say.
Meanwhile let there be a national grade-by-grade definition of what young people should know and in what sequence, and back it up with a nation-wide standardized system of testing. (Hardly what the Constitution had in mind.)
The big difference? Everyone studies the same things. What is at stake is who chooses the school's leadership, its staff, pedagogy, textbooks, sequence, and rules of operation. If money is saved that money becomes profit. Private individuals/groups—some for profit and some not-for-profit—some more inclined to listen to their teachers and families, some less so will run the show. But whether they listen is up to them.
At a time when all the usual and very expert regulatory bodies failed to supervise far fewer banks and investment houses, why assume that regulators can protect hundreds of thousands of schools that serve, above all, our least advantaged students. It is an idea that no one has ever proposed openly, each step along the way having been viewed as just offering slightly more flexibility, openness, opportunity, etc.
And I fell for it myself. Instead of getting the entrepreneurship to open up schools with progressive ideal such as mine, or even those with other particular visions we are getting versions of the old story—vocationalism disguised as academics or academics disguised as vocationalism — organized so that they do not need highly expert employees.
Note, that in the "charter world" this latter mainstream model now has a name — "the no excuses" schools. Three-strikes you're out, zero tolerance. Shape up or ship out.
We will clearly still need a public sector for the square pegs—those kids who charters kick out—plus, perhaps, public schools for the highly selective winners, those who do not 'need' silent hallways and lunch periods, "no excuses policies", or rote learning pedagogies focused narrowly on reading, writing and arithmetic. The new privately managed charter schools would serve the large majority of 'at risk' children with a regimented 19th century education iin the name of closing the test-score gap.
In the Harvard course on charters that I attended recently all this came to me as though I had not noticed it before. It seemed starker and clearer. "Those children" need it, "they" are not like "my" or "our" children. I had not as bluntly confronted this language since I began teaching in 1962 when I heard it from both left-wing and traditional conservative teachers. It was the original reason I started Cental Park East and then CPESS in East Harlem—to counter that claim. To show that what was needed was a more intensified progressive education, not a more intensified reform school model. And then to my surprise we hit a moment in history when the idea spread like wild-fire. In 1985, when Ted Sizer's book appeared, there were literally thousands of schools interested across the country. Not, mind you, "systems," but principals, teachers and families who wanted or had to stay in the pubic system but wanted something very different. Within less than a dozen years the Coalition itself multiplied a hundred fold, and several other like-minded nation-wide alliances began on a scale similar to the Coalition, alongside smaller geographic coalitions in regions and states based on similar progressive views.
Following Annenberg's shot in the arm, (we had relatively little support from foundations), increasingly impatient with our snails pace. (In fact, Ted Sizer's original idea was to model only 15 schools over a decade)—to prove it was not utopian. It was the foundations who insisted they would only support the work if we went whole hog.
Test scores were okay—but the score gap remained fairly stable, and the "bureaucrats" with private money had had "enough." The bureaucrats with public money never bought in, except on the far edges: District 4 in NYC, some integrated sections of a few other districts, sprinklings of public "pilots" in Boston and Chicago, and in a few states like Minnesota and Wisconsin.
But our short-lived spree did not outlast our generation; the new crew of reformers coming from elite universities and colleges, backed by connections to the truly rich, and eager to make their mark in history bought into another utopian grand scheme. And as I listened to the young man who was on the platform with me I saw in him the same enthusiasm and care that I had had—for a very different idea. He took it for granted that the kind of schooling that had worked for him could not work for the kids he was determined to educate well. And by educate well, he, at least, had the same aspirations that I did. Feisty, well-informed and skilled grownups who would defend and extend democracy and equality to our beloved country and planet.
I left both discouraged and elated. If he was right, I would be delighted. If he was wrong, we would "just" have to wait until the new wave of reformers discovered it. Meanwhile, we "just" needed to stay alive until the period of bottom-up reform came around again. Meanwhile, what both sides needed was to thoughtfully explore how we spread sufficient mutual respect and trust to learn from—not convert—each other. That is why I like democracy—it rests, in the end, on persuasion not mandates
Deborah
http://deborahmeier.com
What epitomizes the latest "true reform" is that it cuts off both teacher professional and parent/family judgment about what goes on in publicly-financed schools. Above all in urban areas, but overtime perhaps to rural and suburban communities too.
Even vouchers are creeping back; but there is no need for vouchers if the same interests and ideology can be served without any clear legislative decision to abandon "schooling as we know it." It has been slipped in—first as an experiment to shake off old habits. A charter here and there with a new idea that could appeal across geographic boundaries would open up our thinking, courage real innovation—influencing all schools. All it needs is: a friendly Mayor, a friendly President and weakened unions.
Let many flowers bloom, managed largely by private companies, including school chains serving as many pupils as the average school system does now, working under a broad state-wide and federal oversight and boards/trustees selected by the school's "founders." Caps? None, they argue. Only proponents of the current "drop-out factories" would want to slow this replacement down, charter fans say.
Meanwhile let there be a national grade-by-grade definition of what young people should know and in what sequence, and back it up with a nation-wide standardized system of testing. (Hardly what the Constitution had in mind.)
The big difference? Everyone studies the same things. What is at stake is who chooses the school's leadership, its staff, pedagogy, textbooks, sequence, and rules of operation. If money is saved that money becomes profit. Private individuals/groups—some for profit and some not-for-profit—some more inclined to listen to their teachers and families, some less so will run the show. But whether they listen is up to them.
At a time when all the usual and very expert regulatory bodies failed to supervise far fewer banks and investment houses, why assume that regulators can protect hundreds of thousands of schools that serve, above all, our least advantaged students. It is an idea that no one has ever proposed openly, each step along the way having been viewed as just offering slightly more flexibility, openness, opportunity, etc.
And I fell for it myself. Instead of getting the entrepreneurship to open up schools with progressive ideal such as mine, or even those with other particular visions we are getting versions of the old story—vocationalism disguised as academics or academics disguised as vocationalism — organized so that they do not need highly expert employees.
Note, that in the "charter world" this latter mainstream model now has a name — "the no excuses" schools. Three-strikes you're out, zero tolerance. Shape up or ship out.
We will clearly still need a public sector for the square pegs—those kids who charters kick out—plus, perhaps, public schools for the highly selective winners, those who do not 'need' silent hallways and lunch periods, "no excuses policies", or rote learning pedagogies focused narrowly on reading, writing and arithmetic. The new privately managed charter schools would serve the large majority of 'at risk' children with a regimented 19th century education iin the name of closing the test-score gap.
In the Harvard course on charters that I attended recently all this came to me as though I had not noticed it before. It seemed starker and clearer. "Those children" need it, "they" are not like "my" or "our" children. I had not as bluntly confronted this language since I began teaching in 1962 when I heard it from both left-wing and traditional conservative teachers. It was the original reason I started Cental Park East and then CPESS in East Harlem—to counter that claim. To show that what was needed was a more intensified progressive education, not a more intensified reform school model. And then to my surprise we hit a moment in history when the idea spread like wild-fire. In 1985, when Ted Sizer's book appeared, there were literally thousands of schools interested across the country. Not, mind you, "systems," but principals, teachers and families who wanted or had to stay in the pubic system but wanted something very different. Within less than a dozen years the Coalition itself multiplied a hundred fold, and several other like-minded nation-wide alliances began on a scale similar to the Coalition, alongside smaller geographic coalitions in regions and states based on similar progressive views.
Following Annenberg's shot in the arm, (we had relatively little support from foundations), increasingly impatient with our snails pace. (In fact, Ted Sizer's original idea was to model only 15 schools over a decade)—to prove it was not utopian. It was the foundations who insisted they would only support the work if we went whole hog.
Test scores were okay—but the score gap remained fairly stable, and the "bureaucrats" with private money had had "enough." The bureaucrats with public money never bought in, except on the far edges: District 4 in NYC, some integrated sections of a few other districts, sprinklings of public "pilots" in Boston and Chicago, and in a few states like Minnesota and Wisconsin.
But our short-lived spree did not outlast our generation; the new crew of reformers coming from elite universities and colleges, backed by connections to the truly rich, and eager to make their mark in history bought into another utopian grand scheme. And as I listened to the young man who was on the platform with me I saw in him the same enthusiasm and care that I had had—for a very different idea. He took it for granted that the kind of schooling that had worked for him could not work for the kids he was determined to educate well. And by educate well, he, at least, had the same aspirations that I did. Feisty, well-informed and skilled grownups who would defend and extend democracy and equality to our beloved country and planet.
I left both discouraged and elated. If he was right, I would be delighted. If he was wrong, we would "just" have to wait until the new wave of reformers discovered it. Meanwhile, we "just" needed to stay alive until the period of bottom-up reform came around again. Meanwhile, what both sides needed was to thoughtfully explore how we spread sufficient mutual respect and trust to learn from—not convert—each other. That is why I like democracy—it rests, in the end, on persuasion not mandates
Deborah
http://deborahmeier.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Small Schools and Choice Revisited
Dear friends,
Sigh! It’s not the first time I’ve noted how even my good ideas can be “corrupted” for quite different purposes than intended. It’s the story of many of the political ideals I still hold to. Small schools were a tool, not an end. So was the idea of requiring a super-majority in the Senate a way to prevent the majority from railroading the minority. So too, I guess, is democracy itself. We can all bemoan it at times.
A colleague from whom I learnt so much died recently, Seymour Sarason. He always thought I was too naïve, but he never tried to discourage me. I will miss his encouragement.
Two of my favorite ideas: small schools and choice – have become bywords of reform, backed by millions and millions of dollars and the power of the city, state and federal government. As “the grandmother” (or so I am often introduced) of the small schools movement, I should be overjoyed. As the author of an article in The Nation magazine in 1991 called Choice Can Save Public Education, why then aren’t I feeling proud? I was right, and wrong. Here’s my account.
My mistake was forgetting a puzzling fact. (In fact I gloated about it, as evidence that the twain can meet.) These two ideas became popular at a moment when the nation was moving to the right, not the left and when the idea that “the free market place” was the over-riding safeguard of our liberties held sway. I was right to take advantage of every crack that came along to do better for kids, and enjoy my work as well. But, as Sarason said, I was atypically (I claim) naïve. All in all, I don’t regret it. The “small-schoolers” made a difference, and still do, in the lives of many children and restored hope to many adults. That cannot be taken away. But…
My slogan in the 80s and 90s was not just small schools, not just schools of choice, but self-governing small schools of choice, democratic schools where most decisions were made at the place that family, teachers and students met. (Exceptions: issues pertaining to civil rights, health and financial integrity). Richard Rothstein in The Way Things Were reminds us that change has long been needed. We did not face a new educational crisis but just one more educational “opportunity” to rethink practices that have not served us well for a century and more. Change of the magnitude that I believed desirable (leave out necessary—who knows about that?) could not be mandated, I argued. They could not be brought to scale by either the logic of argument or the power of the State. A free people must freely change its mind. We could nudge, and we could set the odds in favor, but we cannot and should not override the opposition through mandates.
I believed, in hindsight maybe foolishly, that smallness was perhaps something however that could be mandated. That’s a fact—I did! Because, I argued, only in a small community of adults could the conversation that was needed take place; only face-to-face could teachers and parents explore their common goals, restore trust. To expect a weekend retreat in which 100 teachers and who knows how many parents will usefully come up with a mission or vision was absurd. Only in a small community could the trust needed be built, so that parents and teachers might ‘experiment” together on the young. . This isn’t to make guinea pigs out of the children—but to allow local committees to use what they know about their own children and students. But, as I used to remind parents, neither were their first born, and there’s some evidence that they turn out “best.” But, to make sure, I also urged, sufficient choice should exist so that all families would not need blind trust. Unfamiliar practices would expand as rapidly as the demand for them grew. (I too, am a free-marketer on many issues.)
I argued that only a small community could focus on the multitude of academic and social needs of the young while also educating them for democracy. Only a small community could dare take leaps—of faith. The balance of forces required frequent revision, we had to stop often to be sure we weren’t leaving some behind in our adult enthusiasms. We also needed external review to help us see what we otherwise might overlook, to restore needed balance. We said we’d do X, are we doing it? We said it would help us do Y, is it?
Starting with many short-lived storefront and freedom schools in the 60s, the exploration grew. Teacher centers blossomed around New York City, for example, run and operated by local colleges full of teacher-talk and experimenting together. Out of these grew programs on with physical sites, such as Lillian Weber’s Workshop Center at City College. We created small communities of teachers within existing schools which had permission to work together around a common corridor, across grade levels, with the support of their principals and assistance from the Workshop Center. (I was an advisor to such sites.).
Out of such programs grew essentially semi-“independent” public schools. Central Park East in East Harlem was one of a great many that came into being in the 70s under the leadership of Anthony Alvarado and Sy Fliegel. (Most were not recognized as real schools for 20 years, and were therefore led by teacher-directors not official principals.) Many teachers got excited at the idea that they could work differently without abandoning the public sector, that public did not have to mean mediocre and lockstep. As the idea took off, it seemed as though the genii could never be stuffed back into the bottle.
We struggled with the idea of how voluntarism would work. We argued about whether such schools could be selective without doing harm to the idea itself, and to the children not selected. We argued about whether the choice was the school’s or the families’? We argued about how far we ought to be able to stray with public money. We proposed, in the early 90s, that we initiate (with Annenberg monies) a large-scale pilot of approximately 50,000 students with a 5-year mission to bring these ideas to scale, while Columbia University and New York University studied our work and an external body of critical friends and experts kept close touch with what was happening (responsible in the end to the Chancellor and the School Board.) The local teacher’s union waived virtually all the contract provisions to further this experiment, as did our then chancellor and the State Superintendent and our local NYC Board. We had everything ready to go, including financial support . And then…a new chancellor and a new state commissioner put an end to it. They did not see themselves as coming to office while their empire was taken apart—even gradually.
Although not followed through in New York, the ideas of small schools and choice was picked up by others. My joy that many a Big Business was also excited by our ideas gave me hope. My paranoiac antenna was overcome by the unlikely friendships the idea seemed to create. When charter schools began I saw them as an offshoot of our ideas. In fact one of the early high schools to break into smaller units was in Philadelphia and they called themselves charters. (See work by Michelle Fine.)
I never had illusions about the voucher idea—of free-market private schools paid for with public funds—which were being turned down in state after state. Charters, I assumed, would be thoroughly public, as in the East Harlem and Annenberg proposal. An example was Ted Sizer’s Parker School in Massachusetts, where for once he could try his ideas out as he had dreamed of them (modified by those who joined him). Friends all over the country got excited and I urged them on. Groups of teachers or parents with their own different ideas and willing to exploit themselves to make them work cropped up in many unlikely places. But so did similar public schools—in Boston, Chicago, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and on and on. I went on to Boston where a smaller scale model of our Annenberg proposal got under way—the Pilot School network.
Well, you all know what happened. Diane Ravitch. in her new book the Death and Life of the Great American School System. has laid it out pretty thoroughly, as have others. Charters became the favorite new toy of businesses and businessmen. Some hoped to make a profit off it, some hoped to find fame and glory, some just liked to be part of the latest fad. They saw testing as a way to relatively cheaply control their quality, and ward off regulators and monitors. They saw teachers and parents as buyers/clients/wage earners. The model was business—and maybe not the best of business at that, as some business reformers warned them.
The crisis talk, our economic shakiness all seemed a perfect backdrop for scaring people into forgetting about our age-old experiment in public education, an experiment that has been adopted throughout most of the world, above all in democracies.
We have installed new bureaucracies, we have recreated too many chain store schools. Decisions were made further and further from school folks. The charter schools themselves also grew larger to accommodate efficiency. In several cities the mayors decided to use them to unload their own “accountability” for public education and replace it with privately managed corporations. Maybe deliberately, maybe not. I’m hoping for the latter, and that they too will take a careful look at what they have created before we cross the line of—well I was going to say “no-return”, but actually history doesn’t end and if democracy remains a good idea, we will grow truly public schools again. And again.
If this privatization fails in the ways I suspect it will, it will have destroyed our public system; and it may be hard to put humpty-dumpty back again. That’s why we need to work very hard to retain the best examples of public education before even the memory of what it meant for us all to have a stake in each other’s children.
Deborah
P.S. Mike & Susan Klonskly lay out an extended treatment of this issue in their book Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society
Sigh! It’s not the first time I’ve noted how even my good ideas can be “corrupted” for quite different purposes than intended. It’s the story of many of the political ideals I still hold to. Small schools were a tool, not an end. So was the idea of requiring a super-majority in the Senate a way to prevent the majority from railroading the minority. So too, I guess, is democracy itself. We can all bemoan it at times.
A colleague from whom I learnt so much died recently, Seymour Sarason. He always thought I was too naïve, but he never tried to discourage me. I will miss his encouragement.
Two of my favorite ideas: small schools and choice – have become bywords of reform, backed by millions and millions of dollars and the power of the city, state and federal government. As “the grandmother” (or so I am often introduced) of the small schools movement, I should be overjoyed. As the author of an article in The Nation magazine in 1991 called Choice Can Save Public Education, why then aren’t I feeling proud? I was right, and wrong. Here’s my account.
My mistake was forgetting a puzzling fact. (In fact I gloated about it, as evidence that the twain can meet.) These two ideas became popular at a moment when the nation was moving to the right, not the left and when the idea that “the free market place” was the over-riding safeguard of our liberties held sway. I was right to take advantage of every crack that came along to do better for kids, and enjoy my work as well. But, as Sarason said, I was atypically (I claim) naïve. All in all, I don’t regret it. The “small-schoolers” made a difference, and still do, in the lives of many children and restored hope to many adults. That cannot be taken away. But…
My slogan in the 80s and 90s was not just small schools, not just schools of choice, but self-governing small schools of choice, democratic schools where most decisions were made at the place that family, teachers and students met. (Exceptions: issues pertaining to civil rights, health and financial integrity). Richard Rothstein in The Way Things Were reminds us that change has long been needed. We did not face a new educational crisis but just one more educational “opportunity” to rethink practices that have not served us well for a century and more. Change of the magnitude that I believed desirable (leave out necessary—who knows about that?) could not be mandated, I argued. They could not be brought to scale by either the logic of argument or the power of the State. A free people must freely change its mind. We could nudge, and we could set the odds in favor, but we cannot and should not override the opposition through mandates.
I believed, in hindsight maybe foolishly, that smallness was perhaps something however that could be mandated. That’s a fact—I did! Because, I argued, only in a small community of adults could the conversation that was needed take place; only face-to-face could teachers and parents explore their common goals, restore trust. To expect a weekend retreat in which 100 teachers and who knows how many parents will usefully come up with a mission or vision was absurd. Only in a small community could the trust needed be built, so that parents and teachers might ‘experiment” together on the young. . This isn’t to make guinea pigs out of the children—but to allow local committees to use what they know about their own children and students. But, as I used to remind parents, neither were their first born, and there’s some evidence that they turn out “best.” But, to make sure, I also urged, sufficient choice should exist so that all families would not need blind trust. Unfamiliar practices would expand as rapidly as the demand for them grew. (I too, am a free-marketer on many issues.)
I argued that only a small community could focus on the multitude of academic and social needs of the young while also educating them for democracy. Only a small community could dare take leaps—of faith. The balance of forces required frequent revision, we had to stop often to be sure we weren’t leaving some behind in our adult enthusiasms. We also needed external review to help us see what we otherwise might overlook, to restore needed balance. We said we’d do X, are we doing it? We said it would help us do Y, is it?
Starting with many short-lived storefront and freedom schools in the 60s, the exploration grew. Teacher centers blossomed around New York City, for example, run and operated by local colleges full of teacher-talk and experimenting together. Out of these grew programs on with physical sites, such as Lillian Weber’s Workshop Center at City College. We created small communities of teachers within existing schools which had permission to work together around a common corridor, across grade levels, with the support of their principals and assistance from the Workshop Center. (I was an advisor to such sites.).
Out of such programs grew essentially semi-“independent” public schools. Central Park East in East Harlem was one of a great many that came into being in the 70s under the leadership of Anthony Alvarado and Sy Fliegel. (Most were not recognized as real schools for 20 years, and were therefore led by teacher-directors not official principals.) Many teachers got excited at the idea that they could work differently without abandoning the public sector, that public did not have to mean mediocre and lockstep. As the idea took off, it seemed as though the genii could never be stuffed back into the bottle.
We struggled with the idea of how voluntarism would work. We argued about whether such schools could be selective without doing harm to the idea itself, and to the children not selected. We argued about whether the choice was the school’s or the families’? We argued about how far we ought to be able to stray with public money. We proposed, in the early 90s, that we initiate (with Annenberg monies) a large-scale pilot of approximately 50,000 students with a 5-year mission to bring these ideas to scale, while Columbia University and New York University studied our work and an external body of critical friends and experts kept close touch with what was happening (responsible in the end to the Chancellor and the School Board.) The local teacher’s union waived virtually all the contract provisions to further this experiment, as did our then chancellor and the State Superintendent and our local NYC Board. We had everything ready to go, including financial support . And then…a new chancellor and a new state commissioner put an end to it. They did not see themselves as coming to office while their empire was taken apart—even gradually.
Although not followed through in New York, the ideas of small schools and choice was picked up by others. My joy that many a Big Business was also excited by our ideas gave me hope. My paranoiac antenna was overcome by the unlikely friendships the idea seemed to create. When charter schools began I saw them as an offshoot of our ideas. In fact one of the early high schools to break into smaller units was in Philadelphia and they called themselves charters. (See work by Michelle Fine.)
I never had illusions about the voucher idea—of free-market private schools paid for with public funds—which were being turned down in state after state. Charters, I assumed, would be thoroughly public, as in the East Harlem and Annenberg proposal. An example was Ted Sizer’s Parker School in Massachusetts, where for once he could try his ideas out as he had dreamed of them (modified by those who joined him). Friends all over the country got excited and I urged them on. Groups of teachers or parents with their own different ideas and willing to exploit themselves to make them work cropped up in many unlikely places. But so did similar public schools—in Boston, Chicago, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and on and on. I went on to Boston where a smaller scale model of our Annenberg proposal got under way—the Pilot School network.
Well, you all know what happened. Diane Ravitch. in her new book the Death and Life of the Great American School System. has laid it out pretty thoroughly, as have others. Charters became the favorite new toy of businesses and businessmen. Some hoped to make a profit off it, some hoped to find fame and glory, some just liked to be part of the latest fad. They saw testing as a way to relatively cheaply control their quality, and ward off regulators and monitors. They saw teachers and parents as buyers/clients/wage earners. The model was business—and maybe not the best of business at that, as some business reformers warned them.
The crisis talk, our economic shakiness all seemed a perfect backdrop for scaring people into forgetting about our age-old experiment in public education, an experiment that has been adopted throughout most of the world, above all in democracies.
We have installed new bureaucracies, we have recreated too many chain store schools. Decisions were made further and further from school folks. The charter schools themselves also grew larger to accommodate efficiency. In several cities the mayors decided to use them to unload their own “accountability” for public education and replace it with privately managed corporations. Maybe deliberately, maybe not. I’m hoping for the latter, and that they too will take a careful look at what they have created before we cross the line of—well I was going to say “no-return”, but actually history doesn’t end and if democracy remains a good idea, we will grow truly public schools again. And again.
If this privatization fails in the ways I suspect it will, it will have destroyed our public system; and it may be hard to put humpty-dumpty back again. That’s why we need to work very hard to retain the best examples of public education before even the memory of what it meant for us all to have a stake in each other’s children.
Deborah
P.S. Mike & Susan Klonskly lay out an extended treatment of this issue in their book Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society
Monday, February 1, 2010
Learning: What and How?
Dear friends,
On coincidences? Speaking of Richard Elmore—as I was in the last letter I wrote you. Right after writing that blog, I came across a booklet he wrote for the Albert Shanker Institute in 2002. Almost ancient history. Title: The Imperative: Investment in Human Skill and Knowledge. It reminds me why I have always admired him—and had caveats.
His argument in short is that we need to recognize that performance-based accountability, if it is to do what it was intended to do, ”requires a strategy for investing in the knowledge and skill of educators.”
His definition of “what it was intended to do” is not bad: “improve the quality of educational experience for all students and the performance of schools.” But? To what end? How would one measure “the quality” of an experience or a school? Current tests surely do not do that job. Elmore slips over this issue too quickly. I think that accounts for where we begin to part company.
If teaching is done right, he says, students will learn what has been taught. I hope not! Given how many parents, teachers and other “instructors”(including TV, et al) are likely to be teaching/preaching stuff that is plain untrue, or partially inaccurate, or accurate only in part, the rest “we’ll cover later.” (Think of how what we say to children is intentionally not quite true, but they will get the unvarnished version when they are older!)
The “misunderstandings” that occur between the best teachers and the best students (and mostly we have to contend with less than the “best” of either) are where all the fun of learning actually takes place. This begins at birth. Humans are not only born curious, but they are born with a capacity for rather rigorous mechanism for correcting mistakes. They build and rebuild their “theory” of the world based on trial and error—over and over, with modifications and side paths, and adjustments and sometimes huge revisions! Sometimes this process stops—in face of too much uncertainty or not enough—and we fixate, obsessively, on a theory that never gets revised even when faced with its “obvious” contradictions.
I apologize for getting so “up in the air” with this, but I’ve more and more come to believe that this assumption—which academics call constructivism—that I hold about learning is much more controversial than I wish it were. Not only do some disagree with me about what “being human” is like, but insofar as they agree, they think it is one of those qualities that serves us poorly, a bad habit that gets us into trouble. There are those who think that schooling is needed precisely to eliminate that quality of infantile investment in our own ideas, our resistance at just doing or believing what we are told. Yes, we may have to give some of that egotism up, but we need also to hold onto it as we learn also to conform a bit more. We have to watch out for what the trade-offs are—or the adults in our life have to watch out that we do not give up too much.
If we think that the central core of what publicly supported education is about is passing on the best and wisest of our traditions, but simultaneously questioning and revising them, we have a problem with schools as they are. E.g. Which traditions, and whose traditions? There are many. Personally, I expect schools in the USA to pass on the fragile claim that democracy, for all its faults, is the best form of governance. Even as I know too much about how well or poorly it often (mostly?) works! How to pass on the habits and knowledge that will solidify such a claim is a risky business.
But if that is a central purpose, then we need to beware of the idea that what is taught (especially in school) can be measured by whether the learner agrees with what he/she has been taught.
Yes, it is true that you cannot learn anything new if you have no facts and knowledge to build on. But the accuracy of that knowledge is always contentious—from birth on. Sometimes it seems like ”we all know,” “obviously” and “of course.” How could we finish a sentence if we didn’t accept the idea that there is a consensus on most things. But what do we do when we realize there is not? Those phrases—“we all know” and “obviously” and “of course”—often stop us from revisiting past learning. This is one reason children’s rate of learning so far surpasses that of their elders—there is no shame yet about ignorance. It may be why Richard Elmore’s colleagues turned down his idea of revisiting old beliefs.
Finding the balance between accepted facts and truths and questioning them is an art, and a bit of a science—i.e. informed trial and error. But the problem is that we are easily intimidated from publicly exposing our possible ignorance in ways little children are not. This leads in turn to testing them out, often just in our heads. Or sometimes it means we settle, at least for now, on those that feel most comfortable or more polite. Most damaging of all is when we avoid even any inner doubts or questionings. In short, we learn to become non-learners. Except, ah yes, there are always exceptions. Such as when we are fired up by powerful charismatic ideas, people or “movements” which upset our comfortable old theories. At least temporarily. The joy that occurs when a new ideas clicks in place is sometimes even a signal: be cautious. “Conversions”—when we wholesale drop old ideas for new ones, or sometimes just graft one set of ideas onto another—need revisiting from time to time too
The two authors, of many, that I return to when trying to make sense of this are David Hawkins and Jean Piaget. But my most powerful teacher of all is observing with care children’s experiences in schools and elsewhere, and finding the parallels in my own life.. Then I fall back to a favorite quotation from Eugene V. Debs. “I would not lead you to the promised land even if I could. Because if I could lead you into the promised land, others could lead you back again.” How can we embrace solidarity but not group-think?
When Elmore argued for revisiting—as educators—our old ideas, what caught my eye was his unusual willingness to re-explore—not just changing his mind. I live so much within a world that disagrees with me that sometimes I over-cling to that subset of people and institutions that are on my wave length. Finding the right balance is hard for me.
I’m hoping to use this blog (unlike Bridging Differences with Ravitch) to explore what I believe.
So challenge me (if you keep reading these letters).
Deborah
On coincidences? Speaking of Richard Elmore—as I was in the last letter I wrote you. Right after writing that blog, I came across a booklet he wrote for the Albert Shanker Institute in 2002. Almost ancient history. Title: The Imperative: Investment in Human Skill and Knowledge. It reminds me why I have always admired him—and had caveats.
His argument in short is that we need to recognize that performance-based accountability, if it is to do what it was intended to do, ”requires a strategy for investing in the knowledge and skill of educators.”
His definition of “what it was intended to do” is not bad: “improve the quality of educational experience for all students and the performance of schools.” But? To what end? How would one measure “the quality” of an experience or a school? Current tests surely do not do that job. Elmore slips over this issue too quickly. I think that accounts for where we begin to part company.
If teaching is done right, he says, students will learn what has been taught. I hope not! Given how many parents, teachers and other “instructors”(including TV, et al) are likely to be teaching/preaching stuff that is plain untrue, or partially inaccurate, or accurate only in part, the rest “we’ll cover later.” (Think of how what we say to children is intentionally not quite true, but they will get the unvarnished version when they are older!)
The “misunderstandings” that occur between the best teachers and the best students (and mostly we have to contend with less than the “best” of either) are where all the fun of learning actually takes place. This begins at birth. Humans are not only born curious, but they are born with a capacity for rather rigorous mechanism for correcting mistakes. They build and rebuild their “theory” of the world based on trial and error—over and over, with modifications and side paths, and adjustments and sometimes huge revisions! Sometimes this process stops—in face of too much uncertainty or not enough—and we fixate, obsessively, on a theory that never gets revised even when faced with its “obvious” contradictions.
I apologize for getting so “up in the air” with this, but I’ve more and more come to believe that this assumption—which academics call constructivism—that I hold about learning is much more controversial than I wish it were. Not only do some disagree with me about what “being human” is like, but insofar as they agree, they think it is one of those qualities that serves us poorly, a bad habit that gets us into trouble. There are those who think that schooling is needed precisely to eliminate that quality of infantile investment in our own ideas, our resistance at just doing or believing what we are told. Yes, we may have to give some of that egotism up, but we need also to hold onto it as we learn also to conform a bit more. We have to watch out for what the trade-offs are—or the adults in our life have to watch out that we do not give up too much.
If we think that the central core of what publicly supported education is about is passing on the best and wisest of our traditions, but simultaneously questioning and revising them, we have a problem with schools as they are. E.g. Which traditions, and whose traditions? There are many. Personally, I expect schools in the USA to pass on the fragile claim that democracy, for all its faults, is the best form of governance. Even as I know too much about how well or poorly it often (mostly?) works! How to pass on the habits and knowledge that will solidify such a claim is a risky business.
But if that is a central purpose, then we need to beware of the idea that what is taught (especially in school) can be measured by whether the learner agrees with what he/she has been taught.
Yes, it is true that you cannot learn anything new if you have no facts and knowledge to build on. But the accuracy of that knowledge is always contentious—from birth on. Sometimes it seems like ”we all know,” “obviously” and “of course.” How could we finish a sentence if we didn’t accept the idea that there is a consensus on most things. But what do we do when we realize there is not? Those phrases—“we all know” and “obviously” and “of course”—often stop us from revisiting past learning. This is one reason children’s rate of learning so far surpasses that of their elders—there is no shame yet about ignorance. It may be why Richard Elmore’s colleagues turned down his idea of revisiting old beliefs.
Finding the balance between accepted facts and truths and questioning them is an art, and a bit of a science—i.e. informed trial and error. But the problem is that we are easily intimidated from publicly exposing our possible ignorance in ways little children are not. This leads in turn to testing them out, often just in our heads. Or sometimes it means we settle, at least for now, on those that feel most comfortable or more polite. Most damaging of all is when we avoid even any inner doubts or questionings. In short, we learn to become non-learners. Except, ah yes, there are always exceptions. Such as when we are fired up by powerful charismatic ideas, people or “movements” which upset our comfortable old theories. At least temporarily. The joy that occurs when a new ideas clicks in place is sometimes even a signal: be cautious. “Conversions”—when we wholesale drop old ideas for new ones, or sometimes just graft one set of ideas onto another—need revisiting from time to time too
The two authors, of many, that I return to when trying to make sense of this are David Hawkins and Jean Piaget. But my most powerful teacher of all is observing with care children’s experiences in schools and elsewhere, and finding the parallels in my own life.. Then I fall back to a favorite quotation from Eugene V. Debs. “I would not lead you to the promised land even if I could. Because if I could lead you into the promised land, others could lead you back again.” How can we embrace solidarity but not group-think?
When Elmore argued for revisiting—as educators—our old ideas, what caught my eye was his unusual willingness to re-explore—not just changing his mind. I live so much within a world that disagrees with me that sometimes I over-cling to that subset of people and institutions that are on my wave length. Finding the right balance is hard for me.
I’m hoping to use this blog (unlike Bridging Differences with Ravitch) to explore what I believe.
So challenge me (if you keep reading these letters).
Deborah
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
I used to, but now...?
Dear friends,
My working table is a mess—piles upon piles of clippings and interesting articles to comment on. I watched a TV show today about pathological “hoarders.” I think that I am one—all the stuff I know I’ll want to use someday in the future.
When I started blogging for Education Week with Diane Ravitch I thought, ah hah—at last. I'll have plenty of time and space to say everything. But oddly enough it hasn’t had that effect at all. Everything connects with something else and eventually the pile is so huge I can't use any of it. What's such fun about education as a topic is that everything leads to so many connections.
In a way, this reminds me of the way a good curriculum develops. Almost any starting point can lead on to so many connections, and by the time we have to call it quits we’ve barely scratched the surface. It turns out that virtually everything is interesting, and that most interesting things find a way of reminding us of other interesting things, that in turn influence how we think...and so on.
Of course, one must make decisions in life as in the classroom. Which means we are all the time acting on our latest and best hunches, and hoping that in the process we’ll uncover new possibilities for when we come back to the same questions again.
This was precisely the basis of our curriculum design at Mission Hill. We designated some broad topics—three per year—and then jumped into them. Every four years we more or less came back to the same questions—when we were all four years older and wiser. In this spirit I recently reread several pieces I wrote for Dissent magazine in the 60s. Then I began to reread the short essays I sent home to parents after Central Park East started in the 70s. What changes could I detect over these 40-50 years?
Why was I so much more optimistic back then? When I think about how discouraging those years were--Vietnam, the bankruptcy in NYC, etc--why do I feel things may be worse now? Many of the issues I now wring my hands over were surely worrisome then too. Like standardized testing. Like top-down decision making, passive elementary school teachers, the shortcomings of the UFT (my union) and the patronizing put-downs I received from folks when they discovered I was an early childhood teacher.
So when I saw Harvard professor Richard Elmore’s essay in the Harvard Education Letter (Jan/Feb 2010) entitled “I Used to Think…and Now I Think” I decided it was time for me to do the same. The most enlightening/amusing point in Elmore's essay came early: how the idea of consciously revisiting one's old views was so thoroughly rejected by his colleagues. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall.
Says Elmore:
1. I used to think that policy was the solution. And now I think that policy is the problem.
2. I used to think that people’s beliefs determined their practices. And now I think that people’s practices determine their beliefs.
3. I used to think that public institutions embodied the collective values of society. And now I think that they embody the interests of the people who work in them.
I found myself agreeing with many of his thoughts as he developed them on all three topics. But least of all about #3. So I’ll start my own list with his three. In my next letter you’ll get my "I used to...and now" thoughts. But a few hints.
Grandiose policies avoid the realities of practice. But they are both less and more important than I once thought. The practices/beliefs conundrum intrigues me. When Elmore quotes poet Yeats, who said he increasingly saw the world “with a cold eye and a hot heart” I took a deep sigh... Me too. But unlike Elmore, my heart still goes out to all the constituents of our schools—children, their families, and their teachers. I'm less worried than he appears to be about some kinds of "self interest." I still believe that we can develop practices and beliefs that bring together the self-interests of at least those most directly affected by schooling. The connecting link between community, family, teacher and child does not seem unbridgeable. I still believe in our potentially shared interest in…well, almost anything and everything, if we believe ourselves powerful enough to have an impact. And finally, I still have a tendency to worry when a "Crisis" is declared and quick solutions demanded. Democracy works best when we have the leisure to do some hard thinking together.
More later….
My working table is a mess—piles upon piles of clippings and interesting articles to comment on. I watched a TV show today about pathological “hoarders.” I think that I am one—all the stuff I know I’ll want to use someday in the future.
When I started blogging for Education Week with Diane Ravitch I thought, ah hah—at last. I'll have plenty of time and space to say everything. But oddly enough it hasn’t had that effect at all. Everything connects with something else and eventually the pile is so huge I can't use any of it. What's such fun about education as a topic is that everything leads to so many connections.
In a way, this reminds me of the way a good curriculum develops. Almost any starting point can lead on to so many connections, and by the time we have to call it quits we’ve barely scratched the surface. It turns out that virtually everything is interesting, and that most interesting things find a way of reminding us of other interesting things, that in turn influence how we think...and so on.
Of course, one must make decisions in life as in the classroom. Which means we are all the time acting on our latest and best hunches, and hoping that in the process we’ll uncover new possibilities for when we come back to the same questions again.
This was precisely the basis of our curriculum design at Mission Hill. We designated some broad topics—three per year—and then jumped into them. Every four years we more or less came back to the same questions—when we were all four years older and wiser. In this spirit I recently reread several pieces I wrote for Dissent magazine in the 60s. Then I began to reread the short essays I sent home to parents after Central Park East started in the 70s. What changes could I detect over these 40-50 years?
Why was I so much more optimistic back then? When I think about how discouraging those years were--Vietnam, the bankruptcy in NYC, etc--why do I feel things may be worse now? Many of the issues I now wring my hands over were surely worrisome then too. Like standardized testing. Like top-down decision making, passive elementary school teachers, the shortcomings of the UFT (my union) and the patronizing put-downs I received from folks when they discovered I was an early childhood teacher.
So when I saw Harvard professor Richard Elmore’s essay in the Harvard Education Letter (Jan/Feb 2010) entitled “I Used to Think…and Now I Think” I decided it was time for me to do the same. The most enlightening/amusing point in Elmore's essay came early: how the idea of consciously revisiting one's old views was so thoroughly rejected by his colleagues. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall.
Says Elmore:
1. I used to think that policy was the solution. And now I think that policy is the problem.
2. I used to think that people’s beliefs determined their practices. And now I think that people’s practices determine their beliefs.
3. I used to think that public institutions embodied the collective values of society. And now I think that they embody the interests of the people who work in them.
I found myself agreeing with many of his thoughts as he developed them on all three topics. But least of all about #3. So I’ll start my own list with his three. In my next letter you’ll get my "I used to...and now" thoughts. But a few hints.
Grandiose policies avoid the realities of practice. But they are both less and more important than I once thought. The practices/beliefs conundrum intrigues me. When Elmore quotes poet Yeats, who said he increasingly saw the world “with a cold eye and a hot heart” I took a deep sigh... Me too. But unlike Elmore, my heart still goes out to all the constituents of our schools—children, their families, and their teachers. I'm less worried than he appears to be about some kinds of "self interest." I still believe that we can develop practices and beliefs that bring together the self-interests of at least those most directly affected by schooling. The connecting link between community, family, teacher and child does not seem unbridgeable. I still believe in our potentially shared interest in…well, almost anything and everything, if we believe ourselves powerful enough to have an impact. And finally, I still have a tendency to worry when a "Crisis" is declared and quick solutions demanded. Democracy works best when we have the leisure to do some hard thinking together.
More later….
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