Advertising in Schools to a Poor and Captive Audience

I was struck this week by the juxtaposition of reading a recent news story about the growth of advertising in large and impoverished school districts who are desperate for funding (USA today) and an article from February about districts near Santa Monica where wealthy parents are lavishing private donations on their schools to provide for extra resources and enrichment activities (LA Times). Not long ago I also read a news story about one of the many creative spaces proposed for advertising in some large districts in Florida (and already in place elsewhere) which were identified for their great potential as a massive and untapped market: school buses (Orlando). This reminded me of other reports I’ve read of advertising on grade cards and in bathroom stalls—a place I’ve always thought of as a private refuge from the world. When I talk with my college students in my preservice teacher education course about school advertising they are often quick to say that advertising is no big deal and it’s everywhere. But it’s not everywhere equally. And that fact may be part of the reason why it’s a big deal.

Obama's Educational Policy

The Political Animal summarizes President Obama's March 10 address to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, laying out the outlines of his educational policy. Here are the main points:

* Charters: Obama supports lifting caps in every state on the number of charter schools that may be opened, so long as firm and effective accountability guidelines are put in place;

* Curriculum: Obama supported higher educational standards. But his agenda stops short of pursuing national curriculum guidelines or tests, promising only "to promote efforts to enhance the rigor of state-level curriculum."

* Early childhood: Obama's budget provides incentive grants for states to develop uniform quality standards and target care and education to the most disadvantaged children.

* Performance pay: Obama did not directly support merit pay, but spoke broadly of of "recruiting, preparing, and rewarding outstanding teachers".

* The school calendar: Obama said that the conventional school calendar with its short days and long summer breaks, shaped for the needs of an agricultural society, no longer makes sense and places the US at a disadvantage compared to developed nations with longer school days and school years.

A few initial comments;

On charters, the problem is bringing the various states' charter laws into conformity with some standards that limit corporate corruption and narrow targeting of specific populations (often those with anti-democratic agendas) that fragment the public.

On curriculum, Mr Obama seems sensitive to the basic postulate that education is a reserved power of the states. As one comment in The Political Animal notes,

I'm a little rusty on this, but my memory from graduate school suggests the word education doesn't appear anywhere in the constitution of the U.S., but responsibility for it is in every state constitution.

Under our federal system the sdtates are supposed to function as "laboratories of democracy". Until the recent extension of federal power over education, the federal government had been very chary about usurping the educational perogatives of state governments. In addition, it is arguable that different states and regions, due to regional traditions and regional occupational emphases, need distinct curriculum emphases.

On the other hand, a rapidly changing national society needs to promote citizen geographic mobility, and this requires some degree of unification of grade by grade curriculum standards.

A curriculum policy sensitive to these conflicting considerations can only be worked out through close cooperation of state and federal policy makers, leaving the primary power in the hands of the states. However politically appealing, no top down regime such as NCLB can achieve the desired result.

Teacher performance policy must address two distinct issues: on the one hand, recruiting the best people into the teaching force and encouraging teacher enterprise; on the other, keeping weak people out of the teaching force and getting rid of poor teachers. Merit pay, in itself, can not achieve either. It can also be counter-productive in establishing a rigid measure of performance and thus blocking teacher enterprise.

Regarding the school calendar, the idea that the entrenched calendar is simply a holdover from the agricultural era is a howler. Old habits die hard, but where are the horses and buggies on the city streets today? They are gone because they no longer fit our lives. The calendar we have persists because in some ways, not all of them understood, it is in adjustment with our other institutions. For this reason alone I would be cautious about major changes.

But there are positive reasons for preserving something like our current calendar. Shorter school days allow children more time for their own pursuits and more free time with their families. Longer summer breaks ideally give children the vivid experiences of freedom and informal learning that they treasure for a lifetime. One commenter in The Political Animal wrote:

Obama seems to agree with the view that the purpose of America's education system is to create technically-skilled worker bees who will efficiently and productively compete with slave-wage labor in the developing world to fill whatever jobs the corporate aristocracy has for them.

Well, I don't think so, but the point is well taken. Obama said he knew that the idea of long school days and years was unpopular. The democratic ethos is deep in the United States, and the development of individual autonomy absolutely requires long periods of time free from bureaucratic control by school teachers or managers at work. Adults might be quick to keep their kids in school and avoid the inconvenience of arranging for child care, but how many of them are eager to give up their fond memories of their own summer vacations?

Another comment states:

. . . (what does) the ongoing calls for eliminating summer break do to family vacations, where quite frankly I taught my kids more than the schools were doing, and that was in Palo Alto?

The genuine problems here are to develop more efficient use of the school day and more effective use of the school after-school and summer educational programs for children whose overworked or distressed families can not provide informal enrichment activities for their childrens' free time.

Jefferson once wrote that "that government is best which governs least." I do not believe that that education is best which educates least, of course. But the best education carefully restricts its standardized formal component and assures adequate time for informal learning essential for the formation of autonomy and personal responsibility.

Please add your comments and write your own reactions to the Obama policy agenda.

Duncan a Consensus Choice: Obama Retains Tension between Competing Policy Camps

The Associated Press today reports in an article that Arne Duncan, selected to lead the Education Department in the Obama administration, is a consensus pick whose selection avoids picking sides between the two educational policy reform camps.

Obama managed throughout his campaign to avoid taking sides in the contentious debate between reform advocates and teachers' unions over the direction of education and the fate of President Bush's No Child Left Behind accountability law.

"Duncan's selection may satisfy both factions. Reform advocates wanted a big-city school superintendent who, like Duncan, has sought accountability for schools and teachers. And teachers' unions, an influential segment of the party base, wanted an advocate for their members; they have said they believe Duncan is willing to work with them.

Duncan deliberately straddled the factions earlier this year when he signed competing manifestos from each side of the debate."

Where will all the RINOs Go?

The Republican party as we have know it for the last third of a century is dead. It was always an untenable coalition of groups with antagonistic views: libertarians who wanted to do away with government to protect individual freedoms, theocrats who wanted to take over government to limit individual freedoms, and free-market corporate liberals who wanted to buy and sell government to feather their own nests. Anyone outside of that triumvarate was a RINO: a Republican In Name Only. Eisenhower, Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller -- all just RINOS.

What happens now? The libertarians fade back into the woodwork as essentially a marginal group of innocuous kooks; the theocrats look to attach themselves to some other, larger political coalition like a parasite or cancer, the free market corporate liberals buy and sell government in more strategic, retail politics.

As for those RINOs, like Colin Powell, Chris Shays, Richard Lugar: many will gravitate, like Jim Webb, into the Democratic party, alongside of Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, and others, to bolster the centrist pragmatist group. These folks will counter-balance the progressives like Russ Feingold and John Conyers. Obama as president will no doubt straddle the centrist -progressive divide. The near term future of American politics will be inside the Democratic party, with Obama holding the internal balance of power.

As a result, the issues on the table for education will be somewhat different. I suspect we will be hearing less about faith-based institutions, anti-science curricula, or voucher plans. For those looking for a key to decipher the future federal policy agenda, I suggest taking the likely proposals of both of these groups within the Democratic party and figuriug out their ideological synthesis.

Charter schools and other choice-within-the-system plans, networked technologies, and provisions to increase the educational attainment levels of minorities are likely to loom large.

For "the next big idea," look for a formula that bring these three themes together.

Teachers with Guns

Classes have begun in a school where teachers are allowed to carry guns. As some may have read about a few months ago, a small Texas School District has allowed teachers to carry concealed weapons beginning this school year (Reuters reported on this in August of this year). 

 

The Texas School District justified their actions by saying that they were keeping the school safe and further that this was all "common sense," and parents didn't question them. I'd like to think that for most Americans this isn't common sense. 

 

After my initial shock and horror upon hearing about this,  a lot of questions came up. What have our schools become if this is allowed? What have we made of the teaching profession? And dare I ask, are teacher education programs in Texas going to start a course in weapon training? While for now this is an isolated issue, it has made international headlines, and all over the world there have been instances of school violence from disgruntled students.

If we look to Hegel, Herbart, Dewey and others, we can envision the school as in some way a place for expanding the learner's horizon of thought and experience beyond the immediate realm of their private sphere. 

Perhaps one might argue that a certain amount of safety is needed to enact this vision. But what kind of agreement are we asking students to enter into when they have to come to school all the while knowing that the authority figures may have guns? The threat to stop whispering to your friend in the back of the class, or not to criticize your teacher's beliefs becomes that much more serious when the teacher says, "stop acting up (and by the way I have a gun!)".

Honey, who's watching the kids?

If you search "surveillance in schools" in Google News you'll find that more and more districts across the country are turning to video surveillance to monitor student and teacher activity in schools, including in some cases in elementary schools. And it seems that it is not just security experts who can watch the live and recorded footage, but also administrators and authorized staff. ( e.g. "Thompson District School Board Oks video cameras and High Schools upgrade security camera access )

As NPR reported today, many cities are now using planned wireless networks to link hundreds of surveillance cameras that create greater opportunities for monitoring in areas all over the city, including in public schools as is the case in Chicago. However, as the article also states there is high potential for abuse of surveillance material. The ACLU reported that “video surveillance systems lack an adequate system of checks and balances” and in Privacy International’s 2007 report “the U.S. ranked worst country in the democratic world when it comes to putting laws on the books to protect privacy and enforcing them.” See full article: Cities gone Wireless: Safety or Surveillance? 

Will surveillance and privacy be an issue in the upcoming election? Who is protecting the right to privacy of those young people who can’t yet vote?

Obama and McCain on Education

A blog at the Chicago Sun Times offers a comparison of the two candidates on educational policy issues.

Neither candidate has made education a central issue in the campaign.Beyond endorsing NCLB McCain has had little to say. Obama promises to "fix" NCLB by providing full funding and reducing the emphasis on standardized testing. He wants struggling schools to receive support rather than chastisement and threats of closure.

McCain supports vouchers while Obama does not; he favors strengthening the public school system by increasing public school choice.

Following Kathleen Kesson's post last week, SI invites comment on the evolving positions of the candidates on educational issues, as well as position statements that might inform the campaigns and the public on educational issues.

The Ghost of Charleston: Mississippi School Holds First Interracial Prom

Can schools change communities? Is it their responsibility to do so?

One High School in Charleston, Mississippi may have begun to change the community by agreeing to hold their first ever interracial prom on school grounds as NPR reported on Thursday.

As it turned out, it was not due to the activism of the school's administrators that this historic event was able to take place. Rather, it took a Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman and actor Morgan Freeman to initiate the process.

Charleston High School was able to turn a blind eye to the issue of segregated proms by letting parents take over the organization of separate proms and hold them off school grounds. Many parents believed it was in line with "tradition" to have segregated proms.

So the tradition lived on until this year when filmmaker Saltzman heard about the issue. He found out that Morgan Freeman had offered to pay for an integrated prom at Charleston High School back in 1997 and that this offer was refused. Saltzman contacted Morgan Freeman this year and they both went to the school board and the senior class with an offer to pay for the event and capture it on film in a documentary Prom Night in Mississippi.

Salzman explains that some white parents could not get past history and did not allow their children to attend the integrated prom.

But the school has agreed to fund the integrated prom for next year so that it was the students that prevailed and made the integrated prom the new school "tradition". As student Chasidy Buckley proclaimed in a sound bite about the successful event:
"We proved ourselves wrong, we proved the community wrong because they didn't think this was going to happen."

In the end, it was the students, the school and the community working together that made this change possible. But could the school have played a larger role in being a catalyst for change? Is it not their responsibility as an institution to open the doors for change and leave the ghosts of the past behind?

Original article, Photos and Audio interviews