Obama finally made a policy speech on education today. From the Washington Post, New York Times, and Education Week coverage of the speech a few things are clear.
Barack Obama cares about our children and their eduction. And for that we should be very grateful. These are not the Bush years, where pure cynicism and business interests were the rule of the day. Bush did not care about children or their education. He simply cared about pushing for the reforms that would benefit his friends in the business-style reform industry.
According to the white house website, Obama supports:
1) "Investing in early childhood initiatives" like Head Start;
2) "Encouraging better standards and assessments" by focusing on testing itineraries that better fit our kids and the world they live in;
3) "Recruiting, preparing, and rewarding outstanding teachers" by giving incentives for a new generation of teachers and for new levels of excellence from all of our teachers.
4) "Promoting innovation and excellence in America’s schools" by supporting charter schools, reforming the school calendar and the structure of the school day.
My Responses:
Much of Obama's rhetoric on education has stressed the need for America to be the best. Echoing jingoistic , conservative ideology of the Reagan years and the anti-Russian 50's and 60's before them, Obama is rehearsing a kind of America is best exceptionalism that we need to get away from. We live in an interdependent, globalized world. What we need is for every student to be educated to the best of their ability and in a way that allows them to be critical actors within the world in which they exist. Why is the level of education in Africa not as important as that our students score better on tests than Chinese ones? What we don't need is a kind of test-driven arms race between the students of the United States and China? What does that accomplish? Who wins? And what to they win? A medal?
The four pillars:
1) okay, all good people in education support early childhood initiatives, no controversy there, good move Barry.
2) Now, this one is complicated. It all depends on the specifics of how these policices play out. If by "testing itineraries that better fit our kids and the world they live in," we are talking about culturally relevant pedagogy that accoutns for race class gender sexuality literacy and locale, then I'm totally down. If we are talking about alternative assesment strategies like portfolios and teacher assesment, then I am oh, so down. But if we are talking about simply tweaking tests, then, yes, okay, do what the research says, but I am not so down. We have established that testing is detrimental to students' education and students' self concept. Why are we rushing to continue the same test-based reform ideology of the Republicans?
3) Again, sounds great right? This third pillar has some really good things and some not so good ones. The idea of creating a teaching corps, creating new incentives and routes to recruitment is all great. The more the merrier. Let's make sure they get the training they need, but seriously this is all awesome.
Now the problem I have, and it is a big one, is a merit-pay based system, which is essentially what Obama is proposing, and by the way he has indicated his willingness to go up agains teachers' unions, the very ones that worked their buts off to get him elected, to push through this reform. Under a merit based system, outstanding teachers could get paid much more. Now since I plan on being an amazing teacher, this sounds great to me! Right?
But think about this. Imagine two rubrics under which performance could be measured:
1. Standardized testing. If raises are linked to score increases on tests, then this could encourage cheating by teachers at the worst and an even more dreary test-driven slave master approach at the best.
2. Selection or assesment by superiors. Imagine school politics. How in the world could this be done effectively without encouraging favoritism?
Obama says we need to find a way to move bad teachers out of the classroom. I agree. But how are we defining bad teachers? Who gets to define it? What happens when a teacher who is pursuing a politically unorthodox curriculum that stimulates his students but offends his superiors is characterized as "ineffective"? That's why the tenure system we have is crucial.
4. Okay, the school calendar thing I'm not really going to touch. I don't know enough about it. Charters. Charters. Charters.
Positive aspects of charters:
1. sometimes they work.
2. sometimes really cool charters get created, like all black afrocentric curriculum charters.
3. having a self-concious mission can often create results.
Negative aspects:
1. they skim the best students and resources away from the surrounding schools, moving the cream of the crop away to islands of excellence (a phrase obama used). But EVERY student deserves excellence.
2. they often use recruitment policies to keep out special ed students and students with behavioral problems.
3. they are notoriously unstable and can have their charter revoked at any time, effectively ending all the work and promise that created the charter and put the students their in the first place.
4. they are often a site for pofit seeking, business interest, direct-instruction education types to pursue their goals.
We should learn from the positive aspects of succesful charters and incorporate those into our system of education. but Charters are by nature provisional and therefore can never be a long term solution to the woes of our education system.
Which brings me to my strongest criticism of Arne Duncan and Obama:
They have no systematic, comprehensive, long-term vision of a succesful school system. They piece meal embrace policy solutions that may or may not work. What we need is VISION.
Bush and the Republicans. They had a vision. It was evil. But at least they had one. That is what we need from Obama. And I'm afraid we will be waiting for quite some time.
My Responses:
Much of Obama's rhetoric on education has stressed the need for America to be the best. Echoing jingoistic , conservative ideology of the Reagan years and the anti-Russian 50's and 60's before them, Obama is rehearsing a kind of America is best exceptionalism that we need to get away from. We live in an interdependent, globalized world. What we need is for every student to be educated to the best of their ability and in a way that allows them to be critical actors within the world in which they exist. Why is the level of education in Africa not as important as that our students score better on tests than Chinese ones? What we don't need is a kind of test-driven arms race between the students of the United States and China? What does that accomplish? Who wins? And what to they win? A medal?
The four pillars:
1) okay, all good people in education support early childhood initiatives, no controversy there, good move Barry.
2) Now, this one is complicated. It all depends on the specifics of how these policices play out. If by "testing itineraries that better fit our kids and the world they live in," we are talking about culturally relevant pedagogy that accoutns for race class gender sexuality literacy and locale, then I'm totally down. If we are talking about alternative assesment strategies like portfolios and teacher assesment, then I am oh, so down. But if we are talking about simply tweaking tests, then, yes, okay, do what the research says, but I am not so down. We have established that testing is detrimental to students' education and students' self concept. Why are we rushing to continue the same test-based reform ideology of the Republicans?
3) Again, sounds great right? This third pillar has some really good things and some not so good ones. The idea of creating a teaching corps, creating new incentives and routes to recruitment is all great. The more the merrier. Let's make sure they get the training they need, but seriously this is all awesome.
Now the problem I have, and it is a big one, is a merit-pay based system, which is essentially what Obama is proposing, and by the way he has indicated his willingness to go up agains teachers' unions, the very ones that worked their buts off to get him elected, to push through this reform. Under a merit based system, outstanding teachers could get paid much more. Now since I plan on being an amazing teacher, this sounds great to me! Right?
But think about this. Imagine two rubrics under which performance could be measured:
1. Standardized testing. If raises are linked to score increases on tests, then this could encourage cheating by teachers at the worst and an even more dreary test-driven slave master approach at the best.
2. Selection or assesment by superiors. Imagine school politics. How in the world could this be done effectively without encouraging favoritism?
Obama says we need to find a way to move bad teachers out of the classroom. I agree. But how are we defining bad teachers? Who gets to define it? What happens when a teacher who is pursuing a politically unorthodox curriculum that stimulates his students but offends his superiors is characterized as "ineffective"? That's why the tenure system we have is crucial.
4. Okay, the school calendar thing I'm not really going to touch. I don't know enough about it. Charters. Charters. Charters.
Positive aspects of charters:
1. sometimes they work.
2. sometimes really cool charters get created, like all black afrocentric curriculum charters.
3. having a self-concious mission can often create results.
Negative aspects:
1. they skim the best students and resources away from the surrounding schools, moving the cream of the crop away to islands of excellence (a phrase obama used). But EVERY student deserves excellence.
2. they often use recruitment policies to keep out special ed students and students with behavioral problems.
3. they are notoriously unstable and can have their charter revoked at any time, effectively ending all the work and promise that created the charter and put the students their in the first place.
4. they are often a site for pofit seeking, business interest, direct-instruction education types to pursue their goals.
We should learn from the positive aspects of succesful charters and incorporate those into our system of education. but Charters are by nature provisional and therefore can never be a long term solution to the woes of our education system.
Which brings me to my strongest criticism of Arne Duncan and Obama:
They have no systematic, comprehensive, long-term vision of a succesful school system. They piece meal embrace policy solutions that may or may not work. What we need is VISION.
Bush and the Republicans. They had a vision. It was evil. But at least they had one. That is what we need from Obama. And I'm afraid we will be waiting for quite some time.
1 comments:
awesome post!
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