“When one considers in its length and breadth the importance of a nation’s young, the broken lives, the defeated hopes, the national failures, which result from the frivolous inertia with which (education) is treated, it is difficult to restrain within oneself a savage rage”
Alfred North Whitehead The Aims of Education and Other Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1929) p.22. Really want to improve American schooling? Recognize that better teachers are the key ingredient. And also realize that real school reform will not happen until we greatly strengthen their preparation.
How can this be done? The vast majority of undergraduates are too immature and unmotivated for serious teacher training. What is required is thorough preparation in a post-graduate professional school similar to that required of lawyers, medical doctors, veterinarians, opticians and other occupations we actually respect.
Highly motivated and mature students in a demanding graduate environment could become the kind of teachers we need to begin tranforming our schools. But state and federal officials are not only ignoring this opportunity, they have been fostering lax, disempowering short cuts into teaching instead. The Obama administration even classifies interns as highly qualified teachers to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind.
Forget quickie teacher preparation alternatives; close marginal teacher preparation programs at profiteering colleges specializing in cut-rate certification; and require truly professional teacher preparation. This is what is required.
Of course, we would have to pay higher salaries and actually respect teachers in order to attract the best and the brightest to such demanding training. And the average American isn’t willing to pay this tab — particularly while we are squandering trillions of dollars on no-win wars.
What is more, truly professional preparation would really strengthen the teaching profession — a primal fear of politicians. Who could they blame if the teachers could really fight back?
Yes, what needs to be done is obvious. But it is not going to happen any time soon. Meanwhile, our politicians will keep tinkering with high stakes tests, charter schools, vouchers and any other "reforms" that can be accomplished on the cheap.
In today's America most of the responsibility for learning is hung around the neck of teachers. In cultures that haven't lost sight of the obvious, a majority of the responsibility for learning still rests with the student and their parent(s).
Suppose a student refuses to even try? The teacher is still responsible. Suppose a student is a chronic truant and absent a third of the school year? The teacher is still responsible, Suppose the student refuses to do any homework? The teacher still is responsible. Suppose an African-American student is convinced that learning is "acting white?" Suppose a youngster's parents are abusive and neglectful? The teacher still is responsible. Suppose the student is a junkie or alcoholic. That doesn't matter. The teacher still is responsible. Suppose the student is dumb as a bag of rocks? That doesn't matter. The teacher still is responsible. Suppose slack administrators have allowed the school to become a madhouse? That doesn't matter. The teacher still is responsible. Suppose instructional resources are utterly inadequate? That doesn't matter. The teacher still is responsible.
This sort of "accountability" would be regarded as insane in any serious context. Imagine holding a swim instructor responsible for a student's inability to swim even though the youngster absolutely refused to go near the water. Imagine holding a piano teacher responsible for a child's poor playing even though the kid is tone deaf and has no piano to practice on. Imagine holding a ballet teacher responsible for a student's inability to dance when the she skipped a third of the lessons and is morbidly obese.
If posturing politicians don't stop trying to heap unfair accountability on teachers, no one with an IQ over 90 will choose the profession.
Educators are repeatedly told that raising their expectations is the key element in successful teaching. Students will learn more when they expect more.
At best this is political theater. At worst it is advise from nincompoops. More often than not, school failures are a consequence of bad school management, parental incompetence and economic injustice. If a school is persistently dangerous, for instance, how will higher teacher expectations remedy the educational consequences? And will higher teacher expectations cancel out the negative impact of cruel, uncaring or incompetent parents?
What about the fifth of all U.S. children who live in poverty? Will higher teacher expectations overcome its deleterious impact? Consider, for instance, that hundreds of thousands of U.S. youngsters literally don’t have a home to do homework in. On an average night in D.C., for example, 1,300 youngsters are in shelters for the homeless. If a teacher expects them to do their homework anyway, will that suffice?
No matter how elevated teacher expectations might be, learning still is stifled when children are scared, hungry, malnourished, abused, neglected, homeless, sick or enraged. In fact this "just raise you expectations" nonsense trivializes the misery that many children suffer in America. It also insults every teacher who already expects, or at least hopes for, as much as they dare.
Even if every teacher in America becomes a pollyanna, kids living in misery will still rarely see the point of learning to do algebra, appreciate Shakespeare, conjugate verbs, or balance chemical equations. In fact, some are too busy surviving to even learn to read.
Only numskulls expect quality schoolwork from desperate children. So let’s stop urging teachers to be stupid.
The No Child Left Behind Act (“NCLB”) became law in 2002 “to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments.” To that end the law mandates that all teachers must hold "full state certification" and be "highly qualified."
That sounds great, but what does it mean in practice? That depends on which side of Alice's looking glass you are on. In 2008 the Bush administration followed Alice through the mirror when they decided that tens of thousands of teachers in training, interns for example, were "highly qualified teachers." Then, ruling that black is in fact white, a federal court upheld that definition.
In other words, we are talking about rank beginners, students or recent graduates who are gaining, practical experience being highly qualified. In other words. Only in the Wonderland of public education could such jabberwocky be taken seriously.
It is some consolation that, in an uncommon turn of events, the three-judge panel reversed itself and invalidated the Bush adminitration's regulation. In effect, they ruled that whatever "full certification" may mean in a particular state, a teacher is NOT highly qualified before they have obtained it. But the Obama administration figured out a way to sidestep the court and has continued using the logically indefensible Bush definition of "highly qualified" as rank beginner.
in other words, the Obama administration is so dismissive of teacher quality as an issue in school reform that they are unwilling even to insist that public school teachers meet state certification standards that are undemanding to begin with. So Americans, particularly poor Americans, will continue to make do with teachers who often are so far removed from "highly qualified" that it is a joke.
Philadelphia is the site of nearly a dozen recent charter school scandals. Is the City of Brotherly Love just particularly fertile ground for such corruption? Or is this sort of thing common?
There are only 5,400 charter schools in the entire United States. But if we google “charter school fraud” it yields an astonishing 1,080,000 results. “Charter school scandal” triggers another 519,000 and “charter school corruption” 480,000.
Further investigation reveals a broad and deeply troubling nationwide pattern of charter school scandals. And we’re not talking about stealing chump change either. Well over $12 billion was spent on charter schooling in 2010; and a lot of larcenous people are wetting their beaks.
Here are a few examples of what's going on. In Houston Texas the Prepared Table Charter School had its charter revoked and four administrators (a pastor and three relatives) indicted on 26 counts including the embezzlement of millions of dollars in federal and Texas funds. Apparently the table was a little too well prepared in this case.
The Jesse Jackson Academy (with campuses in both Houston and Fort Worth) closed in 2008 when it was charged that school officials had misappropriated $3.2 million in federal funds.
In April the founder of the now defunct California Charter Academy, a chain of 60 charter schools serving 10,000 students around the state, faced 113 felony charges related to misappropriating $23 million in state and federal funds. The charges include 56 counts of grand theft, 56 counts of misappropriating public funds and 1 count of failing to file a tax return. He faces a possible 64 years in prison.
Another California Charter Academy official, who also is a California city councilman, faces 15 counts of grand theft, 15 counts of misappropriating public funds, counts of failing to file a state tax return and one count of filing a false a false tax return
An Islamic movement also has been charged with using their nationwide chain of charter schools to illegally finance the teachings of Turkish Islamic leader Tehuyllah Gulen with US taxpayers money. The FBI is investigating the GUlen schools for illegal use of education funds, criminal conspiracy, extortion and violation of immigration laws.” It is alleged that they have been laundering money through generous “consulting contracts” with Gulen front companies and sending it back to Turkey. The scheme is alleged to also feature prearranged salary kickbacks to the movement by 1,851.
This is just a representative sample of a nationwide Niagara of charter school corruption that is receiving insufficient attention. Most of it is a consequence of weak federal, state and local oversight. Greg Richmond, the President & CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers — an organization made up of the agencies that approve charter schools — testified to the House Committee on Education and Labor in February 2010 that:
“Over the past fifteen years, the federal government has allocated $2 billion to support the creation of new charter schools. … Yet during that same time, the federal government has invested almost nothing, less than $2 million, or one-tenth of one percent, to ensure that those schools are held to high standards and properly monitored by a competent authorizing agency. It is as if the federal government had spent billions for new highway construction, but nothing to put up guardrails along the sides of those highways.”
How has this slapdash approach to supervision come to pass? It has its primary origin with ideologically exuberant politicians who uncritically embrace the self-perpetuating worldview that free market economics is the only possible salvation for allegedly lousy “government” schools and everything else. Their conservative political beliefs have evolved into a self-sealing worldview that has its own gods, heroes, and myths. The central idea is that the cleansing fire of free enterprise, unfettered by regulations, is all that is needed to keep things in order.
Admittedly, an unknown number of these free market politicians aren’t really true believers. They just pretend to be to get the votes of those who are. But this doesn’t make any difference when it comes to casting their votes for the unregulated, prone to corruption, free market approach.
It's time to get back to reality. Let's cool the free market hype and crack down on charter school thieves by setting and enforcing high standards. And this should begin with the Obama administration. They too have fallen uncritically in love with charters. But they had better get the regulatory equivalent of a condom in place before they get too intimate.
Compared to what is required to enter any serious profession, teacher education is a joke.
A cursory comparison illuminates this reality. Let's match up the preparation of podiatrists with that of teachers. Before admission to a four-year college of podiatric medicine, potential feet fixers must complete at least three years of demanding pre-medical study at an accredited college or university and also score well on the rigorous medical college admissions test.
Should they be admitted they must satisfactorily complete two years of tough classroom instruction,in courses such as anatomy, biochemistry, biomechanics, pathology, pharmacology, and physiology. This is followed by two years of clinical training and practice. Graduates earn the degree of Doctor of Podiatric Medicine; but the majority continue their training for from one to four years in hospital residency programs.
Now let's take a look at teacher preparation. Aspiring teachers merely must complete high school and then gain admission to any one of the hundreds of colleges and universities, many of them third or fourth tier, that prepare teachers. Here they experience underfunded, weak kneed, undergraduate teacher preparation programs that serve as school cash cows. After their often weak-kneed course work there is a semester of student teaching with a supervising teacher whose primary qualification is their willingness to put up with it. Pass a couple of state required tests and a brand new teacher is born. Does this seem too demanding? Be of good cheer, there are alternative routes that require far less effort.
It's not that teaching is easier than podiatry. There is at least as much to be known about teaching, learning and human development as there is about bunions, hammer toes and plantar warts. As a matter of fact, there may be a good deal more to know. But we don't value our kids as much as we do our foot comfort . End of story.
There are more than 16,000 school districts in the United States and just about all of them boast that they foster ‘critical thinking. Check out school mission or vision statements, for example. Thousands include heart-warming affirmations like this one from the Lordstown, Ohio School District: “We believe in the development of critical thinking skills.” Then there is the Calvin Wiley Elementary school in North Carolina. They assures all and sundry that their vision, "is to engage in critical thinking and inspire lifelong learning for 21st Century success." These, and the thousand. of others like them, are commendable commitments. But what would happen if school kids actually were taught to think critically? We're not talking about mere logic chopping here — the usual “these are the premises” and “this is a conclusion,” sort of thing. Such so-called ‘critical thinking’ is both harmless and useless because it rarely results in serious considerations of anything of consequence. No. by critical thinking we mean systematically reconsidering the deep assumptions that most of us take for granted. We also mean questioning basic authority — including sacred and semi-sacred documents and those who interpret them. When "critical thinking" fails to include that sort of things it is hardly thinking, much less critical.
Imagine encouraging kids to consider what would have happened if the American Revolution had never happened. We could ask them, "Would we still be a colony of Great Britain?" The obvious answer is no. No doubt we would have gone through the same process as Canada, New Zealand and Australia and today would have long been a fully independent nation. But try encouraging that critical thought and see where it gets you. Or suppose students were taught how to truly, seriously and boldly scrutinize traditional religious beliefs? We might encourage them to ponder, for instance, why a supposedly loving God permits so much physical suffering in the world. If God loves us, what's with things like hare lips, cerebral palsy and spina-bifida? This question of physical evil has engaged critical thinkers, including brilliant Christian ones, for a great many years. But should educators encourage this sort of critical thinking they would have to flee a rampaging mob of angry, torch-wielding villagers. Some might argue that it isn't necessary to tackle such controversial issues head on in order to teach kids to think critically. They maintain that by teaching generic methods, learners will, sooner or later, bring these methods to bear on critical matters. This is a forlorn hope because all sorts of things can interfere with this sort of transfer of learning. If we really want young people to think critically, they must be provided with a direct, well focused and conspicuously relevant opportunity to do so. Teachers should just be prepared to find another job should when they do so.
