This week’s readings put forth two strikingly different
visions for public schools.
In “How to fix our schools: A
manifesto,” former New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein, former
Washington, D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and other cohorts composed a
document full of the language of the neoliberal reform movement. It is both
grandiose and plainly neoliberal. The manifesto invokes the familiar and lofty
refrain of “excellence must be our only criteria.” It preposterously chides schools for not properly balancing the classroom that has some students “reading on a fourth-grade
level” while “others are ready for Tolstoy.” The solutions that it proposes
restructure schools after a business model. “Personnel decisions based on
performance,” “financial incentives” and “a better portfolio of schools
choices” is the business-chic lingo that it suggests will bring about change.
By their reasoning, schools based off the corporate world have the magic that
makes things better for both the student stuck on fourth-grade chapter books
and the bookworm yearning for Tolstoy’s War
and Peace.
In stark contrast, at the end of
Jack Gerson’s chapter “The Neoliberal Agenda and the Response of Teachers
Unions,” Gerson places power for change in the hands of teachers unions
inspired by a renewed spirit of communitarian activism. He urges teachers
unions to organize “a coalition of labor, community, and environmental groups.”
He suggests that demonstrations such as the 10,000 demonstrators who marched at
Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza could be used as a model. Groups like the CORE caucus
of the Chicago Teacher’s Union also could serve as a model of a group that
understands the issues and resists corporate reform. This reminded me that Julie
Cavanagh from P.S. 15 in Brooklyn had told us that she was impressed with
Chicago teachers’ understanding of issues in education. Gerson would remodel teachers unions in a way that unites the great mass movements of the 1930s and the
smaller, communitarian grassroots movements of today.
Of course, the reality is that teachers
unions today, in the struggle between these two competing visions, capitulate to neoliberal reform. Leaders of the two big national teachers
unions (the NEA and AFT) feel that they must do so to keep their seat at the
table among the forces that control public education in this country. When you
have a situation where cities place the authors of the manifesto like Joel
Klein and Michelle Rhee in charge of city schools, it is easy to be sympathetic
with this view. Yet, this same grim reality also underscores the necessity of
having a voice of forceful opposition. Teachers unions may be the last force
left to tip the scales toward communitarian reform. Good reform will require
bravery from unions. It will require leveraging the power of the people against
the power of corporate wealth. The voice of teachers must sound out louder than
corporate propaganda and distortion.
Tom outlined Gerson's powerful vision of teachers’ unions coming together to publicly and collaboratively deliberate education policy and challenge corporate reform. As Olivia pointed out, however, teachers’ unions spend so much time defending themselves that they rarely have the opportunity to put forth the reforms and policies they’d like to see implemented. While I agree that the attacks on unions hinder their voice and ability to offer their own ideas for reform, there are some basic statements that could be made by groups such as the NEA and AFT that might cause sufficient controversy to accord them the attention to have their ideas heard. For instance, we have discussed repeatedly that claims that better schools will improve the economy (as again implicated by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, etc. in the Washington Post article) have no historical basis, so those professing aspirations of global economic dominance via schools best look elsewhere. Additionally, the phrase “student achievement” is thrown around by politicians to rally support for neoliberal reforms. It seems teachers’ unions could challenge the significance of “student achievement” (as measured by test scores) in a more public forum so as to force the public to question the adequacy and legitimacy of high-stakes tests as a measure of student achievement. Also, challenging the charter school movement as a solution to “failing” schools by drawing attention to empirical studies that undermine their efficacy would draw attention to the hypocrisy of neoliberal reforms allegedly based on scientifically-backed findings.
ReplyDeleteWhile I understand this is all easier said than done, I think teachers and teachers unions need to take a stronger stand against the current face of education reform. Because most people know so little about the actual problems facing schools, familiar discourses are easily digestible and not a hard sell to most Americans. Challenging these ideas in a forceful and public manner is necessary to begin to encourage the public to critique and question these “commonsense” education reforms. While such criticism would likely be highly unpopular initially, I think the necessary first step in the fight for reform that addresses the real problems facing schools is to educate the wider public on the issues such that other groups (e.g. labor, community, environmental organizations) might eventually stand in solidarity with teachers’ unions. Remaining passive could alter America’s conception of public education for decades to come.
A major them e that is reoccurring both in the readings for today and the previous reading is voice. Tom brings up a valid point when he said that teacher organizations should have a stronger voice in the educational policies of the public school. Teachers are directly rooted to what happens in school so why not allow them to have a greater voice in how we run our schools. Another theme that the readings talked about was blame. Teachers are at the forefront of most of the blame why schools are failing but in fact as we have learned it is not the teachers themselves but the system that is controlling our schools and our teachers. Like so many of my classmates said before I think that reform can only take place if those who are directly affected by the policies have a voice in those policies. This concept shouldn’t just be limited to teachers and student though. It should include everyone in the community such as parents, teachers, students, everyone because at the end of the day those are the people being affected. However I don’t see how change can come when everything we do is controlled by a system that has so much power.
ReplyDeleteWhen discussing neoliberalism in class, we frequently associate those in power who are influencing education policy decisions as wealthy, corporate professionals with a hidden agenda. While they might hide behind these good intentions of improving the quality of education, they are also manipulating policies so that they can make more money through the implementation of charter schools, testing materials, technologies, and curriculum handbooks. This may be a rather pessimistic view, but one which can be validated nonetheless. However, after reading the manifesto written by Klein, Rhee, and other educational professionals, the same sort of corporate lingo and ideology is repeated. They note how we should “stop ignoring the basic economic principles of supply and demand and focus on how we can establish a performance-driven culture in every American school,” (2). Inputs and outputs are valued in the form of test scores and the success or failure of students (the products) is placed on the shoulders of the managers, the teachers. In his response to the manifesto, Richard Rothstein (from the Economic Policy Institute might I add) argues, “good teachers alone, for most children, cannot fully compensate for the disadvantages many children bring to school,” (2). He then goes on to note that these disadvantages include frequent moves to different homes, malnutrition, stress, and poor health. Upon reading Rothstein’s statement, all I could think of was “duh!” The role of Klein and Rhee among others is to manage and improve the current education system however, they seem to be ignoring the role of external social factors on a child’s education. Shouldn’t the important role that these external factors play in a child’s success be common knowledge, especially to someone involved in education? Do they really believe that the failure of students is solely determined by bad teachers? Even President Obama noted that teacher quality is the most important in-school factor and he acknowledges that other external factors have a large effect on a child’s education (Rothstein 1). Rhee and Klein are not a part of corporate America and yet they frequently push corporate and neoliberal ideologies on public education systems. Why? Do they truly believe that meritocracy is the answer? I would have hoped that they were smarter than that.
ReplyDeleteFrom the moment you read the title, you know this isn't going anywhere good: "How to Fix Our Schools". As if it could be outlined in a 3 page article. And it delivers exactly what the critic would expect: oversimplifications, diversions from real issues, and an uncritical take on the status quo, the neoliberal policies which guide education policy today. To Klein and Rhee, success is something that can be measured by standardized tests, education can be improved without alleviating social issues (and is, instead, expected to single-handedly be the solution to the woes of the world), and teachers are to blame for it all. In fact, the only way to get things going, reform-wise, is to draw media attention to the failure of teachers. Rothstein does a nice job of highlighting the problems of Klein and Rhee's manifesto, bringing in points made by Gershon (and many other authors whose work we've read in this class.) For starters, we can think back to the article we read on measurement- how are we so sure that we're measuring what is actually valuable? Rothstein provides the example of a student who faces extreme amounts of stress at home and is in need of a teacher who is able to comfort and support him or her- the ability of the teacher to meet the student's needs and facilitate education may not be represented in test scores. Rothstein also argues that change in education will be frustrated as long as the current social and economic situation is not improved, since making changes within the school (focusing on teacher quality, especially as measured by standardized testing) is a drop in the bucket when viewed as part of the larger picture of the factors that influence education. To rely on the agency of students is to ignore important contextual factors which have a measurable effect on learning and personal development. And to rely on teachers to promote the agency of students is to do the same. The idea that teachers have the ability to shield students from their environments is to place expectations which cannot be met, ultimately making teachers a scapegoat. While, as Klein and Rhee have pointed out, the apparent 'crisis in education' created by the idea of failing teachers and failing schools has created a buzz and an influx of funding, it is clear that no matter how much attention and funding the education system gets, it will fail to produce real change so long as it attacks the wrong things and moves policy in the wrong direction. It becomes apparent that the 'extraordinary opportunity' Klein and Rhee say arises from the crisis is more of an opportunity for neoliberal pursuits than the furthering of education.
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