Race to the Top in Education

[tonysam]

If there is any doubt at all the Obama administration and the so-called venture philanthropists haven't declared open warfare on public education and teachers in this country, take a look at this piece:

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For decades, policy makers have talked about significantly improving public education. The problem has been clear: one-third of public school children fail to graduate, there are embarrassing achievement gaps between middle-class children and poor and minority children, and the gap between our students and those in other countries threatens to undermine our economic competitiveness. Yet for the better part of a quarter century, urgent calls for change have seldom translated into improved public schools.

Now, however, President Barack Obama has launched "Race to the Top," a competition that is parceling out $4.35 billion in new education funding to states that are committed to real reform. This program offers us an opportunity to finally move the ball forward.

To that end Mr. Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are pushing states toward meaningful change. Mr. Duncan has even stumped for reform alongside former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Yet the administration must continue to hang tough on two critical issues: performance standards and competition.

Already the administration is being pressured to dilute the program's requirement that states adopt performance pay for teachers and to weaken its support for charter schools. If the president does not remain firm on standards, the whole endeavor will be just another example of great rhetoric and poor reform.



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A bit of Susan Ohanian's comment, which I totally agree with:

If you doubt that the Democratic Leadership Council had already destroyed every shred of integrity that once rested in the Democratic Party, then be sure to note what Harold Ford, Jr. is doing these days. And remember, no group was a stronger supporter of NCLB than the Democratic Leadership Council. Take a look at this page. Click on a few of the articles--if you have the stomach for it.

And with Lou Gerstner joining the discussion, we come full circle from when he and Bill Clinton stumped for America 2000 for Pres. Bush the Elder. It contained many of the same elements as RTTT but lacked teeth. Pres. Clinton didn't get the national test he wanted but Obama is well on the way to achieving that goal. Without a whimper from our professional organizations. Members of the Executive Council of NCTE say they cooperated on the LEARN (sic) Act so as to keep a "seat at the table."

Now where have we heard this concern for sitting at a table laden with poison food before?

In the ugly piece below, this trio turn the three wise monkeys upside down, shouting pernicious and phony declarations about the beauty of competition. Look at the concern they express about the embarrassing achievement gaps between middle-class children and poor and minority children--at the same time failing to mention the devastating gap in money and the security of food, shelter, and family well-being that money brings, between middle-class children and poor and minority children. No mention of the gap between the $700,000+ average salary of a Goldman-Sachs worker and the 14 million US children living in families with income below the poverty level. Research shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice that level to cover basic expenses. Using this standard, 41% of children live in low-income families.

[tonysam]

1. Another discussion of the issue is in GD, but I think it is worth having a thread here as well

Harold Ford DLC urges us not to try to water down Obama's education agenda

[zazen]

2. & the bucks will go to puffery, BS workshops, consultants, and "evaluation"

I've worked in this industry for well over a decade. The dollars go through so much before they ever get to the student. Train the trainer, train the superintendents on "leadership," have all the state leaders convene at an expensive resort to brainstorm "reform," develop "instructional materials" to "disseminate best practices." Ad infinitum. Dollars to universities where 40-50% is skimmed off the top in overhead; then the remaining money goes to profs, GRAS, and evaluation consultants (and yes, the universities need the money, but not this way); teachers come in for summer "workshops" for which they're paid meagre stipends and provided with food and supplies; and somehow this is all to transform the way students "achieve and learn!!"

And the dollars the Gates Foundation has put into influencing everyone through national workshops on how RTTT proposals ought to be designed--talk about paying consultants to influence consultants to influence project directors. Where are the starving students and underpaid or unemployed teachers? They don't get invited to these posh meetings.

You have to wonder--when an entire field has been referred to as "reform" for well nigh over 30 years, isn't it time they revisited their core principles? By definition, reform is supposed to be an occasional activity at best. If it becomes what you do for a living--when it becomes the bedrock of your academic field-- then all you're committed to is throwing out your last five-year-plan for yet another strategic plan on a near-annual basis. "Reform" has come to mean, taking money for the latest "who moved my cheese" fad and putting our students through yet another gimmick in the school system factory.

"21st century skills." I want to punch the next person who uses that ill-informed term with me. And if they misuse the word "impact" one more time, like, the "impactfulness of 21st century skills on student success," or some other idiotically constructed educationalese statement, well, I'd want to punch them again.

Duncan should have taken that money for straight out teacher salaries, like the Teacher of the Year who got fired and was re-hired back as a teaching assistant at 1/3rd the salary.

Teachers who stick it out amaze me. You have my eternal gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving.

[tonysam]

3. I couldn't have said it better.

:applause:

[zazen]

4. thx for posting; I didn't realize how angry I'd gotten over this issue

I think the pressure the Congressional Black Caucus is having to put on the Administration regarding unemployment, while the latter was and is still in la-la land with this last stimulus pork package, just pisses me off. It shouldn't take their having to derail the Financial Services bill to get the Admin to take this seriously, although thank God they're doing something. Huffington was right about unemployment may very well be Obama's Katrina.

I'm all for deficit spending for outright jobs, and directing that at strategic goals such as retrofitting houses and industry to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, or just feeding people or giving them healthcare, but the Spring stimulus package was just a glaring example of all of the neoliberal, pro-corporate, pro-globalization mis-assumptions of the past 15 years, which have enthralled all but the fringe of the Dem party as well.

[tonysam]

5. They don't seem to understand neoliberal, Friedmanite policies

are complete failures. The last thirty years of economic policies need to be reversed.

But instead the same policies continue, and among the worst of these policies is what is being done to public education.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. In the meantime, one has to know the 'secret handshake'...

... to get the principal to order friggin' workbooks.

What a dismal mess. The worst part about it is: they ( the privatizers) don't even understand what's wrong.


No, actually, that's the second worst thing. The worst is that they don't *care* that they don't understand.






>>>>>>The dollars go through so much before they ever get to the student. Train the trainer, train the superintendents on "leadership," have all the state leaders convene at an expensive resort to brainstorm "reform," develop "instructional materials" to "disseminate best practices." Ad infinitum. Dollars to universities where 40-50% is skimmed off the top in overhead; then the remaining money goes to profs, GRAS, and evaluation consultants (and yes, the universities need the money, but not this way); teachers come in for summer "workshops" for which they're paid meagre stipends and provided with food and supplies; and somehow this is all to transform the way students "achieve and learn!!"

And the dollars the Gates Foundation has put into influencing everyone through national workshops on how RTTT proposals ought to be designed--talk about paying consultants to influence consultants to influence project directors. Where are the starving students and underpaid or unemployed teachers? They don't get invited to these posh meetings.

You have to wonder--when an entire field has been referred to as "reform" for well nigh over 30 years, isn't it time they revisited their core principles? By definition, reform is supposed to be an occasional activity at best. If it becomes what you do for a living--when it becomes the bedrock of your academic field-- then all you're committed to is throwing out your last five-year-plan for yet another strategic plan on a near-annual basis. "Reform" has come to mean, taking money for the latest "who moved my cheese" fad and putting our students through yet another gimmick in the school system factory.>>>>>>

[Hannah Bell]

13. They understand. They have a different agenda.

[LWolf]

6. Ohanion has been a true freedom fighter for education

for years now. Of course, she nails the source of the achievement gap, which is no surprise to educators: SES.

I think the entire system needs restructuring and reform, just not the way the privatizers want to take us. Still, with no reforms at all, we'd see that achievement gap narrow if all the time, energy, and passion spent bashing education went towards closing the gap between social and economic classes.

Invest in a strong, multi-layered infrastructure to make sure that every citizen has clean,healthy, and safe food, clothing, shelter, and health care, that anyone who wants a job can get it, and that all jobs pay a living wage.

What a difference that would make.

[Prometheuspan]

7. real education reform has nothing to do with how to pay teachers

"merit pay" is nonsensical. Its not real education reform.
it how to pay teachers reform, and it does nothing.


"If there is any doubt at all the Obama administration and the so-called venture philanthropists haven't declared open warfare on public education and teachers in this country, take a look at this piece:"

It obviously does not mean what you seem to think it does, however, its true that obama and company have no good ideas on real education reform.


"are pushing states toward meaningful change."
no, what they are pushing is meaningless change.

"education funding to states that are committed to real reform."

real reform means education reform, there is not one whit of actual education reform in anything they are doing now.
its how to pay teachers reform, how to motivate or punish teachers reform, or how to organize schools economically reform, but none of that has anything to do with education.




"This program offers us an opportunity to finally move the ball forward."

No, it doesn't, its just more barbarity piled on top.


"To that end Mr. Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are pushing states toward meaningful change. Mr. Duncan has even stumped for reform alongside former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Yet the administration must continue to hang tough on two critical issues: performance standards and competition."

two issues which have nothing to do with real education reform.
two red herrings which have meaning only to the ignorant.


"Already the administration is being pressured to dilute the program's requirement that states adopt performance pay for teachers and to weaken its support for charter schools."

Performance pay is an insane idea without merit, and support for charter schools is not something the federal government should be involved in.


"If the president does not remain firm on standards,"

the whole idea of standards based reform is a hoax perpetuated on the ignorant.



"the whole endeavor will be just another example of great rhetoric and poor reform."

that will happen in any case, as the issues being discussed are all of them empty, without relevance to real education reform.


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REFORM General
Curiosity drives learning if it is allowed to do so and not shut down.
Curiosity is shut down via the current system, creating the ADD disorder sudden appearance on the charts. One half of ADD is a person who can’t pay attention. The other half is a boring culture, delivery of information modus
operandi.
Curiosity driven learning involves more brain area participation. If a person doesn’t really like their experience, the subconscious mind edits it and doesn’t learn from it. Using curiosity driven learning potentially accelerates the learning curve such that it would not be unreasonable for the society of the future to expect the equivalent of a multiple PhD education from High School.
The largest obstacle to curiosity driven learning is the current student to teacher ratio. Curiosity driven learning requires a personal curriculum to be developed per child, an enormous labor process for most teachers. The cure is to use peer tutoring, and older child tutoring in conjunction with professional testers. Teachers are being asked do two different jobs, Teaching and Testing. Testing is incredibly underutilized. How can you know what a child is ready to learn if you have not learned from them who they are and what they know already?
The second largest obstacle is a lazy educational system which must be corrected
and re-educated itself. The educational paradigm being taught for use is not the one which is being taught in reform education psychology and sociology classes.
The first battery of tests should be; IQ tests, aptitude tests, Sanity tests, Type of intelligence per intelligence tests, learning style tests, performance tests, peer skills tests, comprehensive topical subject tests, and in general, any test which can be used to effectively appraise an individual child for the purposes of creating for that child a personalized curriculum.
The topics of psychology, sociology, conversational logic, and ethics should be added to the current curriculum for all Middle School (ages 12 to 14 or grades 6 thru 8) and High Schools
Personality differences including learning styles and Types of intelligence
Can mean that people learn in very different ways. Groups of students should be organized without regard so much to age as to learning style. A class full of visual
Learners from 3 age groups is better than a class full of kinesthetic learners and visual learners who find each other distracting and each others interactions with the teacher bizarre. Throw in some introverts and some extroverts and a speed-reader or two, and a teachers modus operandi cannot hope to reach well the different types of Students that s/he is teaching.
10. Our society is composed of a population which is by about 50 percent Anti-intellectual. (As part of a deep and long term attempt at denial of science facts)
The sheeple will crucify the nerds, that’s the end result of pack psychology and anti-intellectualist mob events. Both alleged “Sides” in the great orchestrated argument between left and right are delusional dogmatist simple minded over simplified versions of reality, oversimplified problem solving process, and thus oversimplified and therefore
Usually counterproductive pseudo solutions. Polarity does not contain sanity, both sides are polarized via each other, but the line that connects those two dots at no point in time Ever gets around to the big picture or the whole truth. Evolution and mother nature will on the other hand favor the nerds.

Education reform;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_reform
http://www1.worldbank.org/education/globaleducationreform/
http://www.education-reform.net/
http://dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Education/Education_Reform/

Curiousity driven Learning
http://www.csl.sony.fr/~py/developmentalRobotics.htm
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/interest.html
http://www.childtrauma.org/ctamaterials/Curiosity.asp
http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/students/explore.htm


Types of Intelligence;
http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/ubnrp/intelligence05/Mtypes.html
http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_intelligences

Learning Styles;
http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/Learning_Styles.html
http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/ILSpage.html
http://www.chaminade.org/inspire/learnstl.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles
http://www.funderstanding.com/learning_styles.cfm

Student Teacher Ratio:
http://www.edspresso.com/?OVRAW=education%20reform%20student%20teacher%20ratio&OVKEY=education%20reform&OVMTC=advanced
http://www.edreform.com/index.cfm?fuseAction=section&pSectionID=15&cSectionID=97
http://www.dreamagic.com/jesse/isedurat.html

Anti Intellectualism;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism
http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i15/15b00701.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Anti-Intellectualism-American-Life-Richard-Hofstadter/dp/0394703170
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0121/p17s02-lehl.html
http://mtprof.msun.edu/Spr1997/TROUT-ST.html
http://www.wayofthemind.org/2006/07/26/anti-intellectualism/
https://urresearch.rochester.edu/retrieve/6552/Anti-Intellectualism.pdf
http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2007/02/04/reorganization_plan_calls_for_higher_student_teacher_ratios/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Maine+news

[tonysam]

11. The problem with public education has little to do with pedagogy and everything to do with

structural problems. Not understanding the culture of public education, which is far worse than private business, means no reform can happen. And yes, pay IS important.

Pedagogy is way down the list of the problems with education. My belief is kids are already being ruined by inappropriate curriculum such as full-blown algebra in middle school, several years before most students have the cognitive ability to deal with abstract concepts, and crap like whole language, which is forcing high school-style teaching methods on little kids who MUST have explicit, sequential instruction in reading, grammar, spelling, etc., before they can tackle novels and the like. Putting kids on college-track programs is RUINING so many kids, when there instead needs to be far more emphasis on vocational programs.

We don't need more college-style bullshit in public schools. Kids by the millions are already being forced into special education, with all of the stigma attached to it by being labeled as having "learning disabilities," by far the biggest category of special education students, because they can't handle inappropriate curriculum.

[AdHocSolver]

12. Curriculums are designed by education professors who know nothing about learning and are problematic

It makes little difference whether the lack of learning takes place in public schools or private schools. The students coming out of "upper class" schools with good grades are often as functionally ignorant as students coming out of big city schools with a mediocre grade point average.

The difference is that universities and corporations look favorably on students with good grades (or who have parents who are big donors).

Most schools in the U.S. are designed not to educate, but to indoctrinate. The curriculums and the pedagogy are designed to turn out graduates who will fit into a corporate bureaucracy and not question what they are told to do.

The reason so many kids are "ruined", is not because they are on a "college-track", but because the curriculum at the elementary school level is so dumbed down by design. Mass education was "designed" in the early twentieth century to rapidly prepare the masses, especially the children of immigrants and from rural areas, to be minimally educated in order to function as minions in factories, offices, and the military.

Students in the public schools were to be given enough education to minimally function and no more. The goal was not to educate these students to understand the world, or even to learn on their own. The goal was to get these students up to speed quickly, and with as little effort (i.e., time and cost) as possible. To that end, most courses at the el-hi level are in reality merely "survey" courses. Successive courses at higher grade levels are merely rehashes of earlier classes with more superficial "facts" that the students are supposed to regurgitate.

I went through a big-city public school system and taught school for a couple of years. As a teacher, I could see how superficial the learning is for a vast majority of the students.

Pedagogy is a critical problem with education. However, it is not where the initial changes need to take place. The lack of funding, the politicking, the class sizes, the scapegoating of teachers, the home environment problems of students, and the grip of incompetent "educators" and education administrators on schools all have to be addressed first, as curriculum improvement will never happen without the structural problems being addressed first.

[AdHocSolver]

8. The big failure in education is that it is top down driven, rather than bottom up driven.

This requires explanation.

My Sociology of Education professor said it best: "The principal is the general, the teachers are the privates, and the children are the enemy."

Education in this country is organized like a military campaign or a factory. The curriculum is handed down from on high. It is developed by "educators" (College of Education professors, most of whom wouldn't recognize a child if they stumbled over one), by book publishers who have business degrees and whose only interest is to maximize profit (and are usually among the stupidest fauna on the planet), and school administrators (most of whom you do not want to watch your back).

The people in the trenches, the teachers, are micromanaged by people who know nothing about teaching and who have agendas that are antithetical to good teaching. Teachers have to deal with many problems that prevent education, that are totally external to the teacher's ability to deal with them. None of the politicians, educators, or business types even acknowledge these education environmental problems, especially since the politicians, educators, and business types profit from the status quo.

Instead, these "profiteers" heap scorn and ridicule on teachers to deflect attention from the fact that the profiteers are the root cause of educational problems in the U.S.

Teachers have to put up with classes that are too large for the teacher to give even a modicum of individualized attention to any student. Teachers are bound by a one-size-fits-all curriculum, made even more egregious by standardized testing requirements. Many schools are inadequately funded. Teachers are expected to teach kids who may be hungry, or have emotional problems due to a bad home environment. The entire school day in many schools is organized like an assembly line, with never enough time to delve into a subject in any depth before the class ends, and the students go to the next class.

Teachers should be "masters" and the students should be "apprentices". Teachers having an in-depth knowledge of subject matter should design a course of study, and should decide how to determine a student's proficiency. Teachers should be in control of day-to-day teaching, not some bureaucrat who has had little or no experience in a classroom.

There are good teachers, mediocre teachers, and not-so-good teachers in any system. Scapegoating teachers, which is what NCLB, standardized testing, and so-called "merit pay" schemes are really all about, will not solve education problems. These schemes are designed to deflect attention from the real causes of inadequate eductation results as I have merely outlined here.

[tonysam]

10. Education is run like the military

You are told in ed school how much latitude you have in your job, that you are the master of your classroom to do what you wish within perhaps the parameters of state standards. You are told you are a professional; after all, that's what the Bureau of Labor calls teachers. They are lumped in with doctors, lawyers, and business managers. In reality though, teachers MUST do whatever they are told, even if the orders are ridiculous or even illegal or they face disciplinary actions or even termination. PRINCIPALS have absolute control over teachers, and it is virtually impossible to fire principals, as nobody above them is typically not even supervising these people but instead the bosses are clear across town. Nobody other than small business owners have that kind of control over employees as do principals, and even small business owners can be put out of business by ruinous lawsuits. Not public school districts. They will fight for as long as ten years for their administrators, thanks to taxpayers footing the bill for their defense. Meanwhile, teachers have to fight school districts on their own, assuming they can even find a decent lawyer who will take their case and fight it.

Without an understanding of how schools are really run, without an understanding of the gross power imbalance between teachers and principals/administrators, NO real reform will ever happen.