And if you
read Diane Ravitch, a
professor of the history of education at New York University, you’ll find out:
the prevailing theory is that our public schools are failing. But is it true?
Ravitch
says no—nor is it an opinion that she’s held long. In fact, she served in the
first George W. Bush administration, and supported the No Child Left Behind
program. What was not to like? The idea of standardized testing, quantifiable
results, strict accountability—wow, great stuff.
So what
happened? Well, teachers got the message—better teach to the test, because your
evaluation, or maybe even your job, depends on your results. So what happened?
The teachers crammed the info into the kids—and what happened to the subjects
like art and history and music and science? Sorry—the focus was reading and
math.
In
addition, there have been reports of…well, Let the Huffington Post tell the story:
The indictment
last week of 35 teachers and administrators in Atlanta for manipulating test
scores is just the latest chapter in that city's long festering "teacher
cheating" scandal. In turn, Atlanta is just one of many cities where
evidence has surfaced that educators fudged testing data.
Perhaps
the best way to think of these cheating scandals is that they are the result of
a natural experiment: What happens when you change incentives so that low test
numbers translate into pain and high test numbers translate into rewards?
OK—so
teachers will cheat if their jobs depend on it. And why shouldn’t they?
Because, according to Ravitch, they’re a pretty demoralized bunch right now.
There was a time when parents took their kids to school on the first day of
class, and made the following speech to the teacher—though it really was to the
kid: “my child gives you any problems, you smack a good one, and send a note
home. I’ll beat the tar out of him…..”
And we don’t
want to go back there, tantalizing as the phantasy might be. But the larger
question is what we are asking our teachers to do, and with what resources? It
used to be that kids were generally better behaved, a teacher had broader range
of disciplinary tools, and could teach pretty much how she saw fit. Oh, and
that was all she had to do. Now, she has to be a psychologist, social worker,
nurse, and then—at the end of a long, long school year—get told that her kids
didn’t score the additional five points that an educational psychologist had
decided was appropriate.
So what’s
happened to our schools since No Child? Well, we’ve certainly created a huge
testing industry, which has made some people rich. But what has it taught the
kids? How to take tests.
Nor is
Obama’s program, Race to
the Top, much of a change from No Child. It, too, puts lots of emphasis on
testing, with the difference that if the school consistently fails, then bam!
It turns into a charter
school. And according to Ravitch, Race to the Top puts the blame for poor
scores squarely on the teacher.
But is that
fair? What does a teacher do when confronted with a hungry, sleepless kid who
has spent the night in a homeless shelter? In fact, what correlates with poor
performance in school? Poverty.
Right—so
how does Ravitch feel about charter schools? Well, she’s not impressed.
According to her, charter schools tend to “skim,” selecting the best students,
and consigning the learning disabled, non-English speaking, to the public
system. And why not? They have a product to turn out—wouldn’t you select the
best raw material?
Ravitch
suggests two things: first, that we get rid of the high-stakes testing, and
second, that we regulate charter schools more, so that they admit everyone, not
just the best students.
However
well or badly the schools, either charter or public, are doing—I wonder if
compared to seventy years ago they are much better. I took a 5th
grade test, recently, from 1930, in which I was asked through what bodies of
water I would pass if I went by sea from Malaga, Spain, to the Philippines.
Errr—don’t think I got full credit on that one….
It can be
argued—is it producing anything of worth to know the answer to the question
above? Do kids really need to know this, much less adults? Wouldn’t learning
how to read a map be of more use?
Yes and no.
I think that there has to be a certain amount of basic information that is
drummed into a kid’s head. Anybody should be able to figure out a 15% tip in a
restaurant, without having to resort to the calculator on his cell phone.
So it may
be the work of childhood to learn where the Philippines are, what the capital
city is, and the five main exports. But something happens when a child becomes
an adolescent: he or she becomes capable of abstract thought.
Tracy Kidder wrote a book about teaching,
in which the teacher struggled to get through her curriculum, and in fact never
really made it. At one point, the teacher worries that her students are going
to go through life never knowing who won the Civil War….
Here’s what
I think: in elementary school, you learn the fact: the North won. In short, you
learn answers. In High School, you ask the questions: didn’t the South have the
right to secede? To what extent was this was based on a principle: the freeing
of slaves? Wasn’t there also an economic basis for this war? And what would
have happened if England….
In short,
you learn questions.
I’m
officially on the fence about charter schools. If they work, I’m for them. Having
worked for the largest company in the world, I’m a little uncertain that the
corporate model is appropriate for education. The only things I am sure of?
That
education of our kids is a lot more important than making money. And that any
system—public or private—that fosters inequality because of race or socio-economic
status is heinous.
