You asked for it . . .

["Allen Flanigan." <Allen.Flanigan@USPTO.GOV>]

Here is an Op-Ed piece I threw together.  Anyone care to have a crack at
editing?  I am particularly interested in someone knowledgeable about
forestry checking the veracity of the things I say about the subject (George
Sheridan, maybe?)  And of course, input about the educational side of the
analogy is welcome, too.

CAN'T SEE THE FOREST

A recent TV show about a tree sitter in a California Redwood forest got me
thinking about what is happening in education these days.  One of the points
that forest advocates on the show were making was that good stewardship of a
forest requires thinking about what will be happening 50 or 100 years in the
future.  The health of habitat in old growth forests is due in no small part
to the diversity of species within the forest.  Lumber companies looking for
quick profits can cut down every tree in a forest, but the soil will quickly
become barren.  Lumber companies then may spray herbicides and try to
establish a monoculture forest, with a single species of tree planted.  Such
practices tend to require heavy amounts of chemical fertilizing and
herbicide use, lead to runoff and erosion problems, and fundamentally alter
the character of the forest environment. Ultimately, such a "plain vanilla"
tree farm does not serve the interests of the community, because the
environmental damage wrought by such short-sighted and disruptive practices
harms the community and ultimately harms the company which depends on both
the forest and the community for economic survival.  Responsible lumber and
forestry companies now try to practice "sustainable forestry", where an
emphasis is placed on maintaining a diverse environment in the forest,
including different species and different ages of trees within the forest.
Such diversity helps to maintain the health of the environment, which
benefits the forestry activities and profitability, and enriches the
community surrounding the forest.

The quick profit-taking chronicled on the Frontline show I was watching
occurred after an established lumber company was taken over by a corporate
raider.  The new owners were interested primarily in increasing shareholder
value, so they started clearcutting and doubling lumber production to make
the company balance sheet (and by implication, themselves) look good in the
short term.  This is the kind of thing that highly paid CEOs brought in to
run companies often do.  CEO's like Lou Gerstner, who is moonlighting now as
an education expert.

Like forests, schools are places where trees grow slowly.  Schooling takes
time.  Different species of trees (kids) are different.  Good stewardship of
a precious natural resource, our future generation, is called for.  So what
is happening in our schools these days?  Unfortunately, the corporate raider
types and politicians are struggling to turn our schools into "monoculture"
forests with their one-size-fits-all standards and tests.  Uniformity is the
goal.  By third grade, each child must know this, this, and this, and score
at least that on their state test.  If you don't fit the mold of a good test
taker who enjoys regurgitating facts, too bad.  Is this really good forestry
practice?

Teachers are analogous to pruners and foresters.   The soil itself is
provided in the home and the community in which children live; schools can
try and supplement poor soil and poorly developed root systems, but as James
Traub pointed out in the NY Times, schools, particularly overburdened urban
schools, can only hope to do so much.  Political leaders are ignoring the
fundamental problem of poor educational soil quality (poverty and its
effects on educational and economic prospects), which is hardly surprising,
but now they are making things worse by ignoring good forestry practices and
trying to raise nothing but scrub pines.  They hope to make the balance
sheet look good by getting test scores to rise, but the health of our
schools will suffer in the long run as a result of this short-sighted and
simplistic focus on test scores.

Uniformity and lack of diversity is the bane of a healthy forest, and it is
the bane of healthy school systems.  Even the conservative Milton Friedman
recognized this when he wrote 4 decades ago about government standards and
their effect on progress and the quality of schools:
                "Government can never duplicate the variety and diversity of
individual
                Action . . .  by imposing uniform standards in housing, or
                nutrition, or clothing, government could undoubtedly improve
the level of
                living of many individuals; by imposing uniform standards in
schooling, road construction, or sanitation, central government could
undoubtedly improve the level of performance in many local areas and perhaps
even on the average of all communities. But in the process, government would
replace progress by stagnation, it would substitute uniform mediocrity for
the variety essential for that experimentation which can bring tomorrow's
laggards above today's mean."

We need to wake up to the fact that there is no quick fix for improving
schools; no magic wand that can be waved to raise test scores and simply
pronounce the schools "fixed".  Ultimately, we need better stewardship not
only of our schools but of the soil that sustains them; our communities.  We
need to recognize that a diversity of species (kids with different talents
and needs) and a diversity of forestry techniques (teaching methods attuned
to the needs of diverse students) are needed to give us healthy and
sustainable schools which can in turn enrich the communities in which they
are planted.

Allen Flanigan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mneillft@AOL.COM [SMTP:Mneillft@AOL.COM]
> Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2000 4:46 PM
> To:   ARN-L@listsrva.cua.edu
> Subject:      Re: media
>
> In a message dated 6/22/00 1:07:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> kscanty@PACBELL.NET writes:
>
> >  It would seem to me
> >  that you or someone with your name recognition could use the article as
> an
> >  opportunity to write a letter to the editor (because I'm sure the
> >  pro-testing folks will).
>
> We do write with some regularity. But many more people have to write,
> because
> we can only do so many and papers only want to hear from us but so much.
> This
> also requires that folks who are not experienced in writing op eds etc
> work
> on it, find editorial help, etc.
>
> Monty
>
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