Re: ?????? Cutting Through the Hype

["Kathy Emery" <mke4think@hotmail.com>]

reinforcing the myth,  more like.

the problem with most educational researchers, especially today, is that 
they never question what the goals of schooling are.  Without doing so, they 
turn themselves into policy pretzels trying to figure out how to transform 
public schools into mechanism of meritocracy.

shrag says that cuban says that the goal of schooling is: " providing 
opportunities for a decent life for all Americans"  -- notice that it is not 
providing a decent life but the "opportunity" for a decent life.  Which 
seems to mean that schools are only to provide the skills with which 
students compete with each other for the 20% of US jobs that are good 
paying.  I am sorry, I find this goal unacceptable.

the exclusive focus on MEANS, which this book seems to be all about, 
completely ignores and represses the debate over the GOALS -- and anyone 
with half a brain understands that there is an inextricable connection 
between the means and ends.

I am giving a speech in chicago this thursday night to a bunch of people 
interested in starting a Freedom School there next summer.

Here's a slice of my speech regarding means and ends:  If the goal of 
schooling is to empower, then the method must be Socratic and the content 
must connect to the lives of the students.  If the goal is to disempower (in 
order to control and sort) then the method and content must be such that
students must be made to agree to learn material for which they do not see a 
purpose for learning.  And they must learn that the teacher defines the 
parameters of discussion.

To me, this is what it really comes down to -- will our public schools 
continue to be only about socializing or shall we have schools that educate 
as well? and if we want schools to educate, then educate for what purpose?  
This question needs to be debated first, then the means follow pretty 
clearly.   It's like what that English dude said about the US and the UN -- 
the US govt encourages the bashing of the UN while secretly relying on the 
UN to promote its interests.  Corporate CEOs secretly rely on the public 
schools to promote their interests, while allowing the public to bash them.

as long as the debate remains obfuscated, we will continue to chase our 
tails.

kathy


Kathy Emery, Ph. D.
SF Freedom School
www.educationanddemocracy.org
4828 19th Street
SF CA 94114
415-703-0465
mke4think@hotmail.com



----Original Message Follows----
From: George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>
Reply-To: ca-resisters@interversity.org
To: Arn-l@interversity.org
CC: ca-resisters@interversity.org
Subject: [ca-resisters] Cutting Through the Hype
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 22:09:52 -0700

Peter Schrag: School reform for dummies: A short primer
By Peter Schrag -- Bee Columnist

Published Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Story appeared in Editorials section, Page B7
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14264900p-15077407c.html


Jane David's and Larry Cuban's little 120-page book, "Cutting Through the 
Hype: A Taxpayer's Guide To School Reforms," will never generate hot 
headlines. It's froth-free, and provides little ammunition for the chicken 
littles of American education or for the peddlers of the magic bullets of 
one or another all-purpose school reform.

But it's probably the most sensible book about education reform -- its 
possibilities and its limits -- to appear in a generation. Its calm 
reflection on some 20 of our hottest topics -- how to teach math and 
reading, school choice, merit pay, mayoral control, school-based management, 
social promotion, class-size reduction, tracking -- is essentially a message 
of caution.

If you want passionate declarations for one side or another in the school 
wars, you won't get it from them.

What you'll get is mostly caution. No single program is an all-purpose 
solution, and the differences achieved by different applications in 
different schools of the same teaching program are greater than the 
differences achieved by different programs. The longest distance on Earth is 
that between educational policymakers and what goes on in the classroom.

"All claims about reforms over-promise," they write. "Elected and appointed 
policymakers alike exploit criticism of public education." They overstate 
problems and exaggerate claims. Slogans get thrown around: "research based," 
"best practices," "no child left behind." David, who runs the Bay Area 
Research Group, a small consulting firm, and Cuban, a former high school 
history teacher, school superintendent and recently retired Stanford 
education professor, have a few catch-phrases of their own.

"Avoid tunnel vision" may be the most telling. The measurement of 
achievement based solely on standardized testing and better paying jobs, now 
an article of "unquestioned faith held by rich and poor," narrows the 
objectives of schooling so much that it drives many things that American 
schooling was supposed to be about: civic engagement, building community, 
molding character.

Worse, as the job market gets tighter and even high-tech jobs get 
off-shored, it overemphasizes the economic magic of a college education. 
"The schools are not responsible for the scarcity of productive jobs or the 
decreasing numbers of slots in many institutions of higher education." 
There's no question about the importance of education, and not just for 
jobs. But, as David and Cuban only suggest, in the overemphasis on 
education, other social and economic forces and interventions are 
dangerously minimized.

The point is that in providing opportunities for a decent life for all 
Americans, many things demand attention, from the home background of kids -- 
housing, nutrition, stable communities, family circumstances and involvement 
-- to the tax structure, national health policy, immigration and all the 
rest.

What may be most distressing is that the book had to be written at all. Many 
of its conclusions are familiar, even hackneyed. Experienced teachers tell 
their younger colleagues: "Stay in one place long enough and the same reform 
returns like a bad penny." Time and again, reformers don't learn from the 
past: The fashions have swung from social promotion of kids failing in one 
subject or another to tough retention policies, and back; from whole 
language to phonics; from fuzzy math to drill and kill; from the virtues of 
big high schools to the importance of small high schools.

There are no cheap fixes. "So many reforms," they say, "presume that schools 
alone are responsible for catastrophic dropout rates, unyielding achievement 
gaps and high turnover among school leaders and staffs. Thus, policymakers 
act as though standards-based curriculum, testing and accountability 
measures will remedy these severe problems while failing to provide the 
resources teachers and the support necessary beyond the schools. ? Although 
money is no guarantee of success, lack of money predictably leads to 
failure." Just whipping the inmates harder won't make them teach or learn 
better.

They have lots of ideas, many of them crosses of the extremes in the various 
debates, none of them sexy, few of them new and most pretty obvious:

? However you teach English learners, make certain the teachers are well 
trained and keep in mind that given the burdens that poor immigrant kids 
come with, schools can rarely do the job alone.

? In the face of tight budgets, reduce class size only in schools with 
students who will benefit the most -- schools with poor and minority 
students. Students are better off in a large class with good teaching than 
in a small class with poor teaching.

? Holding kids back usually doesn't work. Those who don't pass the first 
time around aren't likely to do so the second time either, meaning kids 
"pile up" in the lower grades. Double repeaters are likely to drop out. One 
solution is mixed-age classes where kids move ahead in each subject as 
they're ready; another is intense early intervention, including Saturday and 
summer classes, with lots of encouragement for parents to make kids go. 
(That may be the toughest part of all.)

The book could have been called "school reform for dummies." Every would-be 
school fixer should read it.


*  Peter Schrag can be reached at Box 15779, Sacramento, CA 95852-0779 or at 
pschrag@sacbee.com.



George Sheridan

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