Saturday, November 3, 2012

Klein & Rhee, Rothstein, and Gerson


We have been learning about the neoliberal nature of current education reform by reading scholarly articles, but the Washington Post Manifesto represents present discourse among the public rather than the scholars. All of the common words and phrases of propaganda are present within this article: ‘preparing for global economy,’ ‘education crisis,’ ‘big gifts from donors and entrepreneurs,’ ‘performance,’ ‘portfolio,’ ‘business inspired management,’ ‘hard work,’ ‘incentives,’ and ‘evaluations based on data.’ These are all scary. Quite frankly, the entire manifesto scares me because it is a piece of propaganda sprinkled with poorly written attempts at persuasive writing. All of these meritocratic notions are thrown around then the piece concludes with one grand solution: blame the bad teachers. This sorry crew of education experts agree that teacher quality is the most influential factor in a student’s success. This is an idea they almost have correct, but they run off in a strange direction with it calling for a business model. This reform calls for merit based pay and standardized instruction.
Rothstein and Gerson remind us of a few ideas that might help us re-think these proposed solutions. First, Rothstein argues that years of social science research says 2/3 of the factors contributing to student success are outside of the school and not under the control of the teacher. Second, teachers competing for higher test scores and pay incentives will most likely not be in a position to collaborate, something proven to help students as they move between subjects and grades. Finally, an incentive to raise test scores causes teachers to ignore subjects that do not commonly appear on tests. Rothstein points out that we should be applauding teachers that keep the gap from growing anymore when the social climate of the U.S. is becoming worse for underprivileged students and families.
Gerson outlines two myths supporting neoliberal reform. First, public schools are failing and thus the nation is at risk of falling behind other countries and competitors. Second, the reason for this decline is bad teachers and lack of uniformity. We already know why these are not true. Furthermore, Gerson describes how institutional reforms like NCLB and RTTT have received bipartisan support, even from teachers unions (120).
There are a few things here that are disconcerting. The more we learn about education the more we realize that social issues like poverty, marginalization, and exploitation are at the root. We are letting massive amounts of people exist in poverty and unsupported within the country. Education is perhaps the clearest glimpse we have into the vast inequality perhaps because it is the last slightly public institution. If education becomes privatized, it will put unrepresented and under served people in the same position as every other formerly public sphere. They will be accused of personal inadequacy then we will devalue and eventually throw them away. Why is this okay? Why does destroying the livelihood of people not valuable have bipartisan support?  How much of our nation is built upon this idea? 

10 comments:

  1. Like Kelsey, I also question how this educational "reform" that is oppressing millions of innocent people, has received such bipartisan support. I also agree with her that the rhetoric is scary, particularly because it has gained so much support, despite its problematic effects. Even scarier for me is the fact that it will be so hard to change the education policies because of its bipartisan support--that there really is no good candidate for the kind of change we need. It is frightening to think of the possibility of real meaningful change because it seems so far off, that because of all the support from the public and some of the most powerful people in the country, real change may not happen for a while, if at all.

    For me, one of the scariest parts of this type of educational reform is that it manipulates the focus away from the real problems in society and the true roots of these problems. The authors this week all touched on this point and it is something that I think we MUST emphasize when talking about the problems of the current system. Not only is the money thats being used taking away from the money that could be used to solve problems of poverty and inequality, but the rhetoric surrounding the use of test scores, strict standards, and blaming the teachers may be even more problematic because it limits people in talking about the real roots of poverty and inequality and meaningful solutions, like social safety nets, that could actually solve the problems in America. It disgusts me that both parties continue this rhetoric, therefore shifting the focus away from the real problems in American society.

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  2. Throughout Gerson’s chapter, he discusses how education reform in America today receives bipartisan support. As Kelsey mentions, reforms like NCLB and RTTT are supported by both Republicans and Democrats. These acts promote more choice, competition, standards and high stakes tests in our education system. While people acknowledged that NCLB wasn’t working and change needed to come with the election of Obama, RTTT appears to be a reform that goes hand in hand with NCLB. Our government continues to place the burden on teachers in schools to solve the achievement gap. Klein, Rhee and Rothstein all quoted Obama saying “the single most important factor determining success in schools is not the color of skin or zip codes or parents’ incomes, it’s the quality of teachers.” However, as Kelsey discusses, social inequalities are at the root of our education problems. If we identify social issues, maybe we can work our way towards eliminating the achievement gap. Broader economic and social reforms are necessary to improve schools. In Rothstein’s response, he lists economic challenges that many low-income families face. For example, parents who are unemployed are often unable to offer their children enough nutritious food. If children attend school without eating, they are less likely to perform well. Rather than pumping money into the education system, our politicians should focus on the issues that may actually lead to solutions. After reading the articles for today, it is unsettling to see how much support is behind the current reforms. Republicans, Democrats and even teacher unions are coming to a consensus about the reform agenda. We are taking this class in the middle of a major presidential election and both parties’ candidates seem to echo one another when it comes to education policies. This leads me to fear what will happen to our public education system in the near future. I wonder what it will take for our government to recognize the real issues at stake.

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  3. All of the readings from this semester thus far have highlighted the fact that most educational policy makers are obsessed with evidence and numerical data because of this kind of information’s usefulness in holding schools “accountable.” This week’s readings did a good job of showing that while policy makers obsess over testing and data, they simultaneously ignore data that does not fit into their vision of neoliberal reform. For example, all three authors this week discuss the fact that numerous studies have found that 2/3 of student academic performance can be attributed to non-school factors. Similarly, policy makers ignore the reality that charter schools are by and large not outperforming public schools (Gerson 110). This hypocrisy of policymakers is unacceptable; there is nothing scientific or methodological about arbitrarily accepting some data and not others.

    Another interesting topic that Kelsey touches on in her post is teachers’ unions and their current state. While reading Gerson’s chapter I kept wondering “what is the point in having teachers unions if they cannot and do not speak up for what they believe in?” Gerson explains that teachers unions like the AFT and NEA have repeatedly not spoken out against reforms that they disagree with in order to “maintain a seat at the table” when it comes to policy discussions (115). Is having a “seat” in policy discussions worth anything if one doesn’t voice and stand up for his or her opinions at these discussions? Reading about these teachers unions’ frequent tendencies to support corporate, neoliberal education reform also reminded me of our discussion with Julie in Brooklyn during our fieldtrip. Julie seemed to think that many teachers involved in unions were extremely unaware of the problematic nature of most recent educational reforms, and was a belief that I was not expecting to hear. I thought that most teachers involved in unions held strong beliefs and were extremely vocal about them. Knowing now that this is not necessarily the case, I wonder if teachers unions need to be completely restructured and redirected if our schooling system is to become one which adequately values all aspects of students’ educations, and not simply how well students perform on tests.

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  4. While reading the manifesto I was also a bit shocked. The language that they used, as Kelsey mentions in her post, were definitely promoting the privatization model of reform. I think the main problem is that these manifestos seek to simplify something that cannot be just a black and white issue. For example, the Rothstein article spoke to the accusation that teachers are the main indicator of student success. Although teacher quality is important, there are so many other factors outside of school that have adverse affects on the learning of students. I think the article mad a great point when it talked about how teacher quality is the main target of reform because it seems like the easiest to manipulate. Overall, I think that school success and the overall stability in the home (economic, psychologic, and health) are not mutually exclusive like the current discourse seems to suggest. Stable families leads to a higher rate of success, but the system inherently seeks to weed out the weak and uplift people who are already strong.
    I also think that the manifesto took after the "A Nation at Risk" rhetoric in blaming schools for economic decline and lack of competitiveness in the global arena. We know this is not true, but this type of language justifies the creation of charter schools. As I read the manifesto I picked up on all the language that would support privatization, and I was actually surprised that they did not specifically talk about charter schools until the very end of the article. The main issue is that education reform only takes into account a few voices that do not have the experience necessary to correctly diagnose the problems with American education. If the focus was equally divided between social reform and school reform I think real change could take place. As long as manifestos like these are dominating the conversation, public schools are in real dangerous territory.

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  5. I agree with Ady when she says that Michelle Rhee and the others who wrote and confirmed the manifesto are simplifying a truly complicated problem. It is definitely much easier to blame teachers for problems existing in our schools because tackling the true source, poverty, is much more complex.

    It is interesting to also consider how the neoliberal agenda is being played out when considering teachers. Merit pay is clearly a competitive way to hold teachers accountable for their students’ performance on tests, which we clearly find to be biased and unreasonable. I think that Rothstein discusses the issue of teacher collaboration very effectively. He lays out the way in which teacher collaboration creates better student learning because teachers can share with other teachers the lessons were better than others and teachers can make sure their curricula are preparing students for their later grades (2). When teacher pay is linked to student test scores, this effective collaboration is diminished and teachers have to become individualistic. Competition between teachers mirrors the individualistic mindset that we see in other realms of a neoliberal society.

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  6. Having read the Klein and Rhee, “How to Fix Our Schools, I was made aware that teachers are the sole problem of our education system. It was made aware in the article that we had to read for Wednesday’s class that there are more important and more complex gaps than the achievement gap. Teachers are being blamed for the failed system and are being solely focused in order to solve these problems. Just by blaming teachers and placing the burden on them, we think that our problems are going to die down. Just like the achievement gap, we are only focusing on that gap, thinking that if we solve it, then all the other gaps are slowly going to turn over. We cannot solve any of our issues just by placing our interests on one side. We need to acknowledge that there are other equally important things in our society. Thus, it makes no sense for these corporations and foundations to only focus on the structure of our classroom and think that that is the solution. We need to just forget that ideology and instead try attend all issues possible. These corporations are failing and it is because they think that by solving, focusing and emphasizing on only one aspect of the system that they think it will solve for everything. People have to be less selfish and more open minded.

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  7. I agree with Kelsey that this manifesto put forward by Klein and Rhee is one that is truly scary. Once again we see teachers being used as the scapegoat for the faults of our education system while the larger social issues are completely ignored. This manifesto is a push for a more business like approach to our education system through systems of meritocracy and school choice.

    I couldn't help but wonder if these superintendents pushing for these types of changes truly believe that these changes will make a positive difference or if they had a separate agenda. This suspicion arose when I saw the way in which they analyzed president Obama's quote that a student's teacher was the most important factor in a student's performance in the classroom and not their skin color or zip code. According to Rothstein this quote was taken completely out of context. He points out that Obama meant that a student's teacher was the most important "in school" factor. Rothstein does a good job of providing evidence through the use of other interviews with Obama to support this claim. Ultimately coming to the conclusion that in school factors account for 1/3 of the differences in achievement. While out of school factors, stemming from an unacceptably high unemployment rate, account for 2/3 of the difference in achievement. This makes me wonder if the superintendents were reading Obama's interviews objectively or subjectively.

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  8. After reading the Klein and Rhee “How to Fix Our Schools” manifesto it was made clear that superintendents and administration clearly believe that by blaming teachers, and trying to “fix” that problem, that our education system will not continue to fail. There is being too much time spent on trying to “fix” teachers as the problem, instead of fixing the actual social, and economical problems that exist, and consume our education system. Agreeing with others, it is such an easy fix for teachers to be blamed, instead of addressing the much more complex problem that is present. I think that Ady says it really well when she states, “I think the main problem is that these manifestos seek to simplify something that cannot be just a black and white issue.” Too often, we assume that an issue only had two sides, but we see that the issues that surround the education are far from that. As long as we build that everyone should be under one type of control, and that we want everyone to be in the elite class of education or they are not worthy, nothing will ever get accomplished. Acknowledging that there are different sides to this argument, and that so many factors come into play is crucial if we want any type of improvement to be made. It is so frustrating to hear time and time again that the teachers are at fault for the education system, how can we expect things from them when society and the system are failing them and our students?

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  9. We have seen throughout the current election process that Democrats and Republicans seem to be bridging their political boundaries on the topic of education reform in our country. Piggy-backing off of Tara's response I too believe that while both political parties are focused on what Rothstein would describe as "in-school factors" there is a lack of emphasis placed on the underlying issues that are plaguing our education system. With the push to privatize education came the neo-liberal idea that through business model education a teacher should be able to mold successful students despite other societal factors. As we have discussed and analyzed in numerous readings throughout the semester we have come to understand that this is simply not the case. It is disturbing that the rhetoric surrounding possible education reform tends to completely neglect these issues. There needs to be an immediate shift in thinking, in conversation, and in actions in order for reforms that have the genuine interests of students in mind.

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  10. Like Ally, the Gerson reading reminded me of the conversation we had with Julie at PS 115. She made an interesting observation about the recent direction teachers’ unions have taken in light of corporate education reform. Popular conservative ideology has condemned teachers’ unions (commonly seen as an establishment of the liberal, New Deal era) for blocking reform. As we’ve studied, this reform is centered on finally impressing upon teachers this concept of “accountability” and unions have responded by compromising with corporate reform instead of proposing an alternative agenda.
    Because they fell under such attack, unions have gone on the defensive, Julie said. Julie pointed out that unions have stopped acting directly out of students’ best interests and focused on their targeted teachers. Thus they seemingly leave themselves with no choice but to fall into line with neoliberal reform in order to sustain themselves. However, Julie mentioned that she perceived a slow change in thinking about these reforms. Perhaps, if she were wins the union election, under her leadership she could educate teachers about the concealed and problematic aspects of school reform and refocus discussion around what this change actually means for children.

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