The case of Samantha Ardente, school secretary/porn actress

With Weinergate continuing to unfold (or, one might say, perhaps more appropriately, "extend itself") the question of the sexual habits of public figures is in the zeitgeist at the moment. I'm not particularly interested in what happens to Congressman Weiner after he is finished with "rehab" (maybe he will eventually earn big cash on the motivational speaker circuit: "How I recovered from my sex/sexting addiction."), but the storm of public condemnation around Weiner's actions indirectly highlights an important educational issue: the ways in which school personnel are judged for their sexual practices outside of schools. 

Specifically, I'm thinking about the recent case of Samantha Ardente. Up until March of this year, Ms. Ardente (not her real name) had been a low-profile office assistant at a Québec City secondary (grades 7-11) school.  She continued in this role without incident until a student discovered that Ms. Ardente had a sideline job: she had performed in several porn scenes.

Race to the Top: Is the AFT Losing the Race?

Steven Brill, in a comprehensive article in the New York Times, details the impact that Race to the Top is having on education legislation at the state level.

As states compete for portions of the $4.3 billion dollar Race fund, legislatures are passing new laws eliminating or reducing teacher tenure and mandating inclusion of test score results on teacher compensation, in order to conform with the demands of the Race.

Gradually, the national AFT and the local unions are loosening their long-held demands regarding both issues. If the states have not achieved the Race goals, they must submit memoranda of understanding (MOUs) in their Race proposals regarding agreements to achieve them. At this point some of the states claim to achieve these goals, but the MOUs include clauses such as "as consistent with state laws" that in effect nullify them. Nonetheless, the pressure on the unions is severe.

Brill appears to me to be a cheerleader for the Reformers, a tightly organized group of political and business elites. So the article must be read with some caution.

Federal Support to Save Teacher Jobs

Steve Benen over at the Political Animal has an interesting post about federal funding to prevent teacher lay offs.

Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), with the "enthusiastic support" of the Obama administration, are leading the effort in Congress to send 23 Billion to the states to avert the lay offs of 300,000 teachers. Meanwhile Republican John Boehner labels the proposed legislation a "bailout" of puiblic education.

The comments in the post are fascinating and appear to include all shades of opinion about public education.

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."

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!)".

GOP Education Platform Echoes McCain's Strong Conservative Proposals

The GOP has endorsed an education platform with many of the K-12 proposals of Sen. John McCain, Education Week reports today.

It calls for merit pay for teachers, for recruiting the best educators "without regard to collective bargaining agreements," for expanding charter schools and private school vouchers that can be used at religious schools.

McCain didn't mention NCLB in recent speeches and the GOP platform is just as vague; it doesn't mention the measure by name. But it calls for strong accountability measures.

The platform also supports "English First" instruction as opposed to bilingual education, and the right of students to engage in voluntary prayer in schools. The document also calls for replacing "family planning" programs for teenagers with increased funding for abstinence education.

The Democratic Party Education Platform

The few remarks on education in Joe Biden's acceptance speech last night were lifted directly from pages 18-21 of the democratic election platform.

The education plank is brief and not very informative. The key features are recruiting and retaining teachers by providing merit pay, fixing NCLB by adding a number of additional metrics and providing resources for unsuccessful schools rather than labeling them as failures, supporting more public charter schools, and reforming schools of education. No details are provided in the platform itself. More detailed policy statements are no doubt available, but I haven't yet tracked them down.