Education for Democracy/Principles of School Reform

[Newdem@aol.com]

In the recent debate on the ARN list over the significance of NCLB--is it  
mainly about privatization or about social control--Pete Farruggio, Kathy  Emery 
and others have made the point that, to defend public education  effectively, 
we also must criticize it effectively; we must be the leaders  of real school 
reform.
 
Below I have copied a set of Principles of School Reform developed by  
teachers, elected leaders, and staff of the Minnesota Education  Association and 
myself in 1986 which I think are relevant to this  discussion. While these 
principles were developed some twenty years ago,  they might still provide a useful 
starting-point for discussion of what a  real school reform movement would 
look like.
 
Way back in the 1980s I was hired first by the Massachusetts Teachers  
Association (1982-83) and later by the Minnesota Education Association  (1985-86) to 
prepare long range plans to strengthen the unions internally  and to help 
them cope with the rising attacks on public education in their  states. As 
Washington Director of the National PTA, I had directed the National  Coalition for 
Public Education in its defeat of the Tuition Tax Credit Act in  the 95th 
Congress (1977-78), but it wasn't until that battle was nearly over  that it 
occurred to me why seemingly all the major institutions of US  society were 
mounting this attack on public education: that it was part of a  larger strategy of 
social control, to lower people's expectations of what their  lives should be 
like. Tuition Tax Credits were merely the opening salvo in what  would be a 
long war. Governors like Bill Clinton in Arkansas and Lamar Alexander  in 
Tennessee were already sponsoring state-based attacks on teachers and  schools. 
"School reform" was spreading like bird flu.
 
My message to the MTA and the MEA was essentially the same: you will either  
lead education reform or you and your students will be its victims. I proposed 
 an analysis of what is wrong with the public schools, that at the heart of 
the  system there is a conflict over its goals. On the one side stand teachers, 
 parents, and students, who want to see students develop to the fullest of 
their  abilities; on the other side stand the policy makers and the political 
and  economic elites, who use the schools to reinforce the inequality of  
American society and to persuade students to accept their place in society  as 
fittingly their own. 
 
The question is, I said, what are we educating students for: to understand  
their society and to change it, or to fit into a society which they do not  
control--education for corporate needs or education for democracy? Teachers, I  
argued, could only succeed in their goals as teachers and as people  who care 
about society by leading the fight for education for  democracy.   
 
Teachers in both states were very enthusiastic about taking the lead for  
education reform and about the long range plans, which I called "Education for  
Democracy." The Massachusetts plan was accepted overwhelmingly in January, 
1983,  3 months before the publication of "A Nation at Risk." The MTA at the time 
was  not facing any specific education reform plan, though the plan 
anticipated the  attacks on the schools. 
 
The Minnesota plan was accepted in spring, 1986. I had been hired  
specifically to help the MEA defeat the Minnesota Business Partnership Education  Reform 
plan, which we succeeded in doing. We succeeded mainly because we  exposed 
the motivations behind the Business Partnership's ed reform plan--a plan  which, 
among other things, would have changed the K-12 system to a K-10 system.  All 
the students would leave high school at the end of the 10th grade; the top  
20% would then be invited back for two years fo pre-college course. The 
Business  Partnership said its goal was to give students more "personal freedom." We  
said its real goal was to create a huge pool of cheap labor and to lower  
kids' expectations for their lives. (The high school completion rate in MN at  
the time was 91%.) The MEA at the time had 37,000 members. 25,000 of them  went 
through a six-hour training program on the content and goals of the  Business 
Partnership's plan and on our Principles of School Reform. 
 
Dave  Stratman
_newdemocracyworld.org_ (http://newdemocracyworld.org/) 
20  Moraine Street
Boston, MA 02130
617-524-4073
******************
PRINCIPLES OF SCHOOL REFORM
(prepared for the Minnesota Education Association by Dave Stratman, March  
1986)
 
The crucial question in school reform is: What are we educating
our  students for? From the goals of public education follow the
policies and  practices of public education and the level of
social resources committed to  it. From the goals also follow the
principles which should shape education  reform.
 
The following is a list of ten principles of education reform
which the  teachers of the Minnesota Education Association believe
should be the  framework for school reform in Minnesota. We have
developed these principles  because we are determined that public
education in Minnesota be as good as  committed teachers and
parents and students can make it. We believe that the  schools of
Minnesota have great accomplishments, but we know that they  have
real problems as well. 
 
We have developed these principles also because we believe that
the  students and schools and teachers of Minnesota are threatened
by a series of  very destructive reform proposals. 
 
The "official" school reform plans proposed to this date--the
Business  Partnership's Minnesota Plan, the Governor's Post-Secondary
Enrollment Option  Plan, and various plans proposed at the national level,
ranging from vouchers  to merit pay--all move in the direction of
lower expectations for most  students, of greater inequality, of
more passive learners, of more intense  competition among students
and teachers for scarcer resources, of fragmented  communities. 
 
We are determined that education reform in Minnesota move in  the
opposite direction: toward higher expectations for all  students,
toward greater equality in education, toward greater school and  public
commitment to the future of our young people.
 
At the center of the debate over the direction for school reform
is the  question, Should the schools prepare students to meet the
needs of the  corporate structure, or should they prepare students
for democracy. This  question is posed very sharply in this period
of economic and political  contraction, with millions of jobs
being shipped overseas, with many others  being deskilled through
computerization, with the collapse and consolidation  of the farm
economy, with continuing high unemployment rates. To  prepare
students to fit into this contracting structure would require
that  their educational attainments be lowered to a "realistic"
level. In fact, the  official reform proposals of the last few
years would have exactly the effect  of lowering the aspirations
and attainments of students. The official  reforms, in other
words, would prepare students to fit into a world of  greater
inequalities and a diminished future. 
 
Genuine reform of the public schools must be based on the values
of  democracy. The capacity of people to learn, to develop, to
work and to act  far exceeds the capacity of the contracting
economic and political structure  to utilize their abilities and
to meet their aspirations. Rather than molding  students to fit
passively into a society over which they will have  little
control, public education should prepare students to  understand
their world and to play an active role in shaping its  direction.
 
The MEA believes that public education should prepare students  to
understand their world and to help change it, so that American
society  can fulfill the promise of democracy.