Education

It doesn't take a genius to see this plan flawed.  What constantly saddens me is the lack of foresight within the Education system and within policy.  Next thing you know we'll have schools run like corporations...oh wait, I think that's already been implimented! 

This is the train wreck of NCLB with new clothes.  It doesn't matter how much you believe.  The Emperor is still naked.  I am a victim of the public education system that caused NCLB to be created. 

As a "Smart" kid, I picked things up in class, but my grades didn't reflect that after a few years because all the teachers graded by home work not tests.  I even had a teacher flunk me in High school and accused me of cheating on the final.  I aced it, yet He flunked me because I didn't do the home work. 

What needs to happen, and I desperately home this administration realizes this.  What needs to happen is teaching directed towards the whole point of school.  Education.

I'm not a teacher, but anyone with 2 braincells to rub together can realize that if you get the concept in class and are able to apply it on the test.  The homework is not needed.  Homework and the back breaking load of books needs to be minimized. 

As well, and the reason my grades began to slide.  I'm not proud of that, but to say that all kids, no matter how smart, are morons in some areas.  Me and my homework are no acception.

As a concept of what is wrong with the schools.  lets look at Math.  Then teach you that A x B = C, once you get that, making it A x B x D = C, is not any different.  Once you have the base concept, making the problem longer or harder doen't change the concept.  The homework only become needed by those that dont' get it.  This is part of my much longer rant, I'll leave the rest for other times.

There are so many problems with the Educational system, it's hard to know where to start, and I can go on.  Both from personal experience as well as thought out ideas what what might work better.

I don't think running a school like a business is a bad thing.  We just have to remember that a school is in the business of educating our children, not a for profit business venture, or a health insurance company.  The numbers being analysed are real live children with real futures waiting.  That must never be forgotten. 

Standards are still important.  That much of NCLB I agree with.  It places the wrong kind of standards on schools.  Multiple choice questions are not good measures of applied knowledge.  They are only good measures of how good one can memorize. 

First we need to simplify our standards.  Students should have more openened questions.  The questions would show whether or not the child actualy had a grasp of the concepts being tested.  This will also push students to do more than just show up and receive a C. 

I'd like to make my case for Outcome-based Education.  If I sound a bit ignorant on the subject I appologize.  I've only just started researching it.  OBE  recognizes all students are capable of improvement, some faster or slower than others.  All can succeed, regardless of class, race, gender, or ability.  I have simplified OBE a great deal, but I urge readers to look into in greater detail as I am. 

Damon and Derek, I agree with you. My view is that when measurement becomes management, then performance becomes compliance, and authentic learning is lost in the muddle.

How in the world did this dialog slide into rants and diatribe - illiterate rants at that?! Sentences include subjects and verbs! Tests are not all, universally, useless! Outcomes are hardly a new way to measure schools! Management is largely a matter of measurement, although those measures will - almost always - include more than tests, particularly in schools! 

These are simple, fairly universal rubrics that ought to apply to any dialog on educational reform, but, dramatically in this thread, they seem to elude most of the posters. There is nothing automatically "wrong" with Duncan's focus on measurement. The heart of the Chicago system is a core of measures, including but hardly limited to tests. And assessing any large system - any system of more than five people trying to do anything - is all a matter of establishing some kinds of goals, and comparing now with some earlier time to see if you've met or exceeded or are even attending to those goals. That is absolutely all Duncan suggested!


Many decades ago I began college courses by distributing a final exam, and challenged any student to stop coming when they could adequately respond to questions posed there. That was only fair. And none of those questions were multiple choice. That technology was invented in the 1930's and 1940's, for punch cards. We've got a lot more sophisticated technology - like this email, for that matter - and a lot more sophisticated measures, if only we apply them.

I really suggest you look at the Consortium on Chicago School Research (http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/content/index.php) before much more of this blathering about tests distracts anyone from more serious and real issues of individual, group, and system accountability. One of the key indicators is attendance - and those who don't come, don't much share in all the rest. Another is performance on tests or in projects agreed upon in classes - and those who wander into other subjects, don't much merit high grades for the subjects they leave. Finally, grades themselves reflect larger processes - with kids as well as with teachers - in which goals first need some consensus; measures reflecting those goals need some clarity; and progress on those measures need regular feedback. This really ain't rocket science, but it is astonishingly rare in school systems, particularly large, complex, and often litigious school systems like those Duncan seeks to reform.

And these are all just a framework; nothing nearly as elaborate as a bubble test is even implied by the need for a framework. There is a reason why the Chicago school chief was a CEO and not a Superintendent. Start there, and you may have a glim about why and how Obama chose him. You've not begun to critique until you know the territory. In the 1970's we decentralized the system, making each school directly accountable for what happened to each kid in that school. That's a dramatic difference from most school systems, and it took decades, and a whole new view of evaluation, to make that kind of change produce real reform. Yet it was, and is, much closer to the reality of school management than most large systems - with hordes of specialties and hangers on - could imagine.

Neil Postman died five years ago, incidentally, so it's neither kind nor particularly literate to imply he is still writing. His stuff was brilliant, but there's lots of brilliance in education. Keep up before leaping into messy fights where the literature is constantly changing. There are some pretty exciting tests and measures gradually emerging, which will reflect an awful lot more than any current ETS or other bubble test. Look for the best in critiquing what fails and you may actually contribute to knowledge rather than diatribes like most of this thread.

I listened to Obama's economic speech and my heart sank when he got to the part on education.  Accountability, performance incentives, it's just more of the same failed policies.

What can we do to reverse this trend? 

As a former public school teacher, I find myself asking a most potent question regarding public education - i.e., "If this system of education were truly 'wise and caring', how is it after 170 years in a nation pivotally involved in shaping the world we are witnessing our current unprecedented environmental, economic and social global malaise?

Too, does this malaise not sit upon the doorstep of our existing context of commerce?  Has commerce not delivered all of it?  And have public education and politics not served commerce?  Three-time teacher of the year John Taylor Gatto adeptly asserts this in his downloadable text, The Underground History of American Education.

When thinking of students about to graduate from high school or college, I can't imagine a halfway intelligent, sensitive youth wanting to insert him/herself into American commerce, military or politics.  Why?  Because they each are materialistic, image and power based, thus effectively "soul-less" – along with the education provided in service of them. Yet we wonder why young people fail to achieve their full potential, drop out, harm themselves and others, or seek to take their own lives - or why this nation hasn't measured up to ITS full potential?  (The above reference to soulfulness, by the way, does not reference theological perspective here rather the inner sense of who we each are as part of humanity and life).

Looking at the underlying characteristics of school violence (which point to the underlying source of violence in society at large), and having spoken with students who put themselves at risk enough to seek to end their lives - I've come to believe that; (a) our entire global malaise represents acts of violence against humanity and/or nature, (b) these acts of violence occur as a result of an individual or organization choosing to dominate and exploit versus cooperate and nurture, and (3) these choices arises as a result of an underlying “disconnect” from our sense of self and our own preciousness.  This “disconnect” has become so pervasive in society it operates at the level of whole systems and cultures – particularly in our western world so entrenched in creating an ever growing “image” to fill its collective void that “consumerism” has become our “cultural identity.”

Should we wish to reach beyond using the same kind of thinking hoping to produce a different result in these critical times – it seems we must muster enough courage to admit that no economic stimulus package will ever solve the underlying cause of our current economic meltdown.  Nor will any increase in standards, incentives, accountability or efforts to "tie teacher pay to classroom performance" ever bring us to the educational promised land. How could they given their existing de-personalized, soul-less, and dysfunctional ground of being?

The key?  We need to redefine and redirect our underlying context of commerce and education (and with these our political process to serve them).

Commerce needs to shift its largely patriarchal foundation of; (a) exploiting resources (natural, human and whole cultures, (b) dominating markets, and (c) measuring success based upon exponentially ever-increasing profits (which means ever-increasing exploitation) - to one more nurturing and matrilineal based upon; (a) how much good we can do, (b) how much we can stay in balance with the Earth and humanity as we do it, and (c) measuring success based upon these and economic viability (ref - Agenda for a New Economy: From PHANTOM WEALTH to REAL WEALTH by David Korten PhD) 

Public education needs to shift its context from serving as a factory designed to support a non-sustainable dysfunctional foundation of commerce to seeing itself as viable agent for social change."  This needs to occur in present time versus assuming students are unable to make a difference until years after achieving their graduate degrees.  Logic and intuition suggest such shifts would foster a more life-serving foundation in commerce and education sufficient to provide greater wellbeing for present and future generations.

Communities consist of three basic arenas - commerce, government and human services (education, social services, religion, etc.).  The most potent expertise, possibility, and "responsibility" to guide a community in a wiser more caring direction lies within the realm of education.  Such guidance is not likely to come from commerce or government given they are currently deeply entrenched, self-serving systems.  Nor will it likely come from our social services system given it is overwhelmed having to address the collateral damage of a disproportionately self-invested, exploitive foundation of commerce.

Can we imagine then a system of public education with a goal NOT to feed dysfunctional status quo rather to serve its community and the world as “an instrument of social change”?   Can we imagine public education that fosters skills and understanding in service of; (a) the personal interests and passions of its students, and (b) provides them with "hands on" involvement sufficient to empower them to help their community and world become a more wise and caring place to live WHILE THEY ARE STILL IN SCHOOL?  Would this not leverage a paradigm shift by which an entirely new soulful education can truly make a difference in the world?  I think so.  I also believe that if we are to truly BE the kind of CHANGE necessary to renew our communities this nation, and world, we will inevitable have to take this step.

Lawrence, I believe that the need to rethink our values is central to most of the problems we are dealing with now. Simple technical fixes will not make any kind of difference that matters. Your proposal for an ethical reform in education, and society at large, is a step in that direction.