Fixing schools because we can't fix the real problems

Did you catch Charles Blow's piece in the weekend NY Times featuring this chart? The chart is aptly titled "Bottom of the Heap" and makes clear that when it comes to the concept of the "just society," the United States does not make the grade. The US ranks 27th among 31 developed nations in measures of intergenerational justice (poverty prevention, child poverty, senior citizen poverty, income inequality, pre-primary education and health rating). Our senior citizens are not at the bottom of the barrel (thank you, Medicare and Social Security), our health rating is higher than Mexico and the former Eastern Bloc countries (something to brag about?), and we spend nearly as much as Finland on pre-primary education (not as good as it sounds since we're still in the next to the last quintile), but the other ratings are truly terrible.

As I was studying this chart I was reminded that inequality is not born and nurtured in our schools; it is deeply woven into American society. It is created by adults and sustained by adults -- and it should be up to adults to talk openly and respectfully about what kind of social fabric we want to weave and wear. Instead we talk about equity vs. excellence (a false dichotomy if there ever was one) and ask that we fix what ails society through high quality schooling.

I am all for high quality schooling for all our children -- and we need to mobilize every person and every resource in that effort not because it solves inequality but because education is good -- for students, for communities, for economic interests. But I can't help but think that those who consider themselves "new reformers" of public schools are fixing schools because they just don't know how to fix any of our real societal problems.

KIPP and Career Building

The other day I read Rick Hess’ interview with KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg and inched closer to figuring out what bothers me about the TFA-pipeline-turned- “real reformer” crowd (as distinguished from the rest of us who have been working diligently for 30 or so years to ensure rich educations for all young people in this democratic society of ours).

I really do like the TFA educational entrepreneurs I know. I respect their intelligence, energy, entrepreneurship and commitment. I appreciate the way they grab hold of openings (like charter school laws) and turn those openings into educational edifices (institutional as well as bricks and mortar). They are opportunistic in apparently constructive ways, turning public money into personal accomplishments. I’m just not always sure that their commitment is educational. I think what is bothering me is that their commitment seems to be more about those personal accomplishments than about developing students’ greater selves. Kids who graduate and go on to four-year colleges feel like notches in someone’s belt. School founder/leaders who are barely out of college appoint themselves “CEO” of whatever they create. I realize that I am growing old and crotchety but is a 27 year old CEO a good thing? Isn’t it at least a little immodest?

Grassroots "Save Our Schools" March on Washington and Call to Action on July 28-31

I recently learned about a grassroots march that is going to take place in Washington DC on July 30th. It is a movement of parents, teachers, students, community activists, and “everyday working people” that has been endorsed by educational voices like Diane Ravitch, Deborah Meier, Alfie Kohn, Joel Spring, Rethinking Schools' editors, David Berliner, among many others. Diane Ravitch will be one of the speakers at the DC rally. Prior to the march and rally in the park, participants will be able to participate in a number of seminars, workshops and advocacy meetings hosted by American University.


Here is their call to action:

A happy face on your report card? A sitcom wades into the Québec school reform debate

 
We're all familiar with the well-worn criticisms of progressive school reform. It's "soft", it's written in "eduspeak", and it's ineffective. But when this kind of criticism makes it into popular culture, you know that it's having a significant impact.

In the clip below (which is subtitled), two major components of the Québec comprehensive school reform are targeted: non-percentage based report cards and cross-curricular competencies. Cross-curricular competencies are simply skills that are acquired across a range of subjects (e.g. critical thinking, problem solving), but the term itself ("compétences transversales" in French) has been surprisingly controversial, as the clip reveals... 



I'm still uncertain about why, exactly, cross-curricular competencies have received so much criticism. It's not as if the idea is particularly difficult to articulate or to understand, and goals like problem solving and critical thinking are uncontroversial. Percentage-based report cards, on the other hand, are part of people's established picture of how school is supposed to be, and so resistance here is less surprising.