EmpowerEd Georgia is Tracking the Cuts

Cut Funding to Media Centers, Cut Funding to Society?

Another great essay from the Teaching Georgia Writing Collective (teachinggeorgia@gmail.com)

Invest in Media Centers, Invest in Society:

The Work of a Media Center Paraprofessional

An Essay from the Teaching Georgia Writing Collective

 

“If America can increase funding for libraries and librarians, I can only think that America has found one important way to rebuild itself.”

-Stephen Krashen

            Stephen Krashen, along with many educational scholars, insists that investing in our libraries and librarians is crucial to building a strong and just America. Research points to high quality school libraries and librarians as key to high achievement for students, especially those from families struggling economically. But when budgets are tight, libraries (or “media centers”), librarians, and Media Center Paraprofessionals can too frequently be perceived as unnecessary costs in schools.

The Clarke County, Georgia school district joins others across Georgia cutting funding for Media Center Paraprofessionals. But most people may not even know what a high-quality media center and media center specialist does for student achievement, much less what the job of a paraprofessional is in the media center.

So what does a Media Center Paraprofessional do?

A Media Center Paraprofessional does research-related activities. She assists students, teachers and parents in finding books, resources, and materials. She also pulls books supporting standards-based lessons for teachers, leads instructional centers during lessons, and assists in creating resource lists and developing the media center collection to meet the needs of students and teachers.

A Media Center Paraprofessional carries the heavy burden of maintaining the media center collection. He shelves hundreds of books each week; processes, labels, and shelves new materials; repairs damaged books and materials to keep them in use; inventories all books and materials; creates inviting displays of new materials; and discards unsalvageable materials, runs a variety of reports important to the maintenance of the media center, and tracks overdue notices.

A Media Center Paraprofessional is a supervisor. She supervises the library while the school library media specialist teaches, participates in mandatory meetings or repairs technology. And while the librarian/media specialist coaches students for exciting events such as the Battle of the Books or the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl, the paraprofessional takes the lead to make sure the media center is open and available to students and teachers. She works one on one with students, assists with small group instruction when classrooms have lessons in the library (some librarians see thirty or more classes each week), and she supports students while the media specialist focuses on collection development, writes grants for more materials (thousands of dollars of grants were written by Clarke County Media Specialists last year) and plans inservice training for teachers.

As if the Media Center Paraprofessional has any spare time given her or his extensive responsibilities with students, teachers, and materials, she or he also provides critical technical support for teachers. And outside the Media Center, they help to supervise and support students all day during breakfast, lunch, car, bus, or hall duty and in computer labs.

Cutting Media Center Paraprofessionals from the Clarke County School District – or anywhere else in Georgia – is risky business. Beyond losing the most basic hands-on contact and support of children, youth, and teachers, this loss could result in limited implementation of initiatives for 21st Century Schools. These educators are central to a school’s ability to provide technical support and professional development for teachers.

Maybe folks don’t care about that fancy-sounding initiative, but they might recall that special feeling you get when you find those just-right books and wait patiently in line to check them out for the week, or that just-right software program or website for your project. The daily work of the Media Center Paraprofessional makes sure that the school library is still that extraordinary place where books, materials, technologies, and all kinds of fascinating resources are displayed to pique students’ interests and support teachers’ learning and teaching. And importantly, they provide encouragement, smiles, and comments on your latest great finds.

Public library usage is up across the State of Georgia, something our state can be proud of. Economic times are difficult and having access to information and resources is an important goal for any democratic society. Cutting funding for school libraries in this critical time of making sure all students have access to the materials, resources, and technological innovation they need to be the best they can be just doesn’t make sense. Surely there are places to cut the budget that wouldn’t impact so directly on the daily lives of children and teachers.

Let’s make sure children have access to the best public school libraries now and help them build library habits that will positively affect their achievements in school and their experiences in life.  And as young children and our youth are building strong habits, we adults can invest in our libraries inside and outside schools – one important way to re-build our communities and invest in a better society.

The War Against Teachers

A former student contacted me today. She’s a first year teacher and says she feels “super unsupported” and that her school wanted to dock her pay 1/4 of an hour for being tardy.

I wonder if the school is going to pay her overtime for the hours she spends at home preparing to teach.

First furloughs and now docked pay?

The war against teachers (and teaching, but that’s another rant) has really reached an unbelievable low.

This is from the Clayton News Daily (Georgia) about HR policies impacting teachers:

Goree: BOE’s personnel policy unfair to employees

By Jeylin White (174)

As of Thursday, March 1, 2012 
© Copyright 2012 Clayton News Daily

#During Monday night’s board of education meeting, school district officials presented several updates on the operation of the school system, but sparks seemed to ignite among board members over the district’s personnel policy.

#School Board Chairperson Pam Adamson and Board Member Jessie Goree clashed when Goree alleged that the board has undisclosed plans to dock the pay of teachers who are tardy too often, or even fire them.

#Adamson told Goree that her concern was not an item that was on the agenda, and was, therefore, not up for discussion. In the middle of Goree’s response to Adamson, her microphone was apparently turned off. According to Goree, it was turned off because board members are “turning their backs on addressing the needs and concerns of district employees.”

#Adamson, however, could not be reached for comment for this article.

#Another Goree concern is that –– according to her –– teachers and other district employees “are not being compensated for working more than 8 hours a day.”

#“I think that is just totally disrespectful to our employees,” said Goree. “We just shouldn’t treat people like this.”

#The current personnel policy, Goree said, allows Clayton County School Superintendent Edmond Heatley to make district employees work longer than an 8-hour day without monetary compensation. Goree added that the current policy is not treating school system employees fairly.

#Her complaint is that teachers and district employees are being forced to attend meetings after school hours, attend weekend events, and that it’s mandatory for all principals to attend board of education meetings, which are held twice a month, in the evenings.

#She stressed to board members that teachers are already overworked and underpaid, especially for the amount of responsibility they carry.

#“It’s more and more demands we keep making on [teachers] without taking them into consideration,” she said. “I understand that, when you take on a job as a principal, it’s a 24-7 position, but we’re not going to compensate principals for working on a Saturday? “It’s bad enough that we [have] principals [sitting] at board meetings on Monday night’s and then they have to be at work by 7 a.m., [the next day.]”

#Sid Chapman, president of the Clayton County Education Association, agreed with Goree. Chapman said the extra hours teachers have to work are excessive, and he said he’s not even sure if the current personnel policy is legal. If fact, he added, the district could be in violation of Georgia’s labor laws.

#“Teachers are being treated very poorly,” said Chapman. “I don’t see where in the policy you can terminate teachers for tardiness.”

#He said the reason why teachers are not coming forth with their concerns is because of fears of retaliation, or of losing their jobs. “The overall feeling is [teachers] are fed up and ready to leave,” he said. “It’s a very oppressive and toxic environment.”

#Goree said she is flooded with phone calls and e-mails from teachers and district employees expressing their concerns about the current working environment. She said teachers are telling her they cannot wait for the school year to be over, so they can find other jobs.

#Clayton County Public Schools Chief Human Resources Officer Doug Hendrix said the district is not in violation of any labor laws. According to Hendrix, fair labor standards list school system employees as exempt employees.

#“[In] our work in education as a profession, there are going to be things we do outside the normal hours,” said Hendrix. “School system employees having to work extra hours is something that comes with the territory.”

#Goree added that her discontentment extends to the personnel policy dealing with teachers’ resignations. She said the board can reject, or deny, an employee’s request to take family medical leave, or to resign from a position, if they need leave to take care of a sick family member. “How can you reject someone’s resignation?” Goree asked the board, at Monday’s meeting.

#Heatley responded by saying that certain criteria must be met before an employee is able to break his or her contract with the school system. He said the contract does not keep employees from leaving their jobs, but it will mean that they have abandoned their jobs.

#Chapman added that there is a lack of consideration for illness, and that the school district is unsympathetic to employees who are having medical difficulties. As a result, he said, they could be terminated. “This [policy] needs to change,” he said.

#“What is it that we are not understanding when we’re reading these policies?” Goree asked. “We have some hard-working people, who work for the school system. Teachers and administrators will do what they need to do to make things work.”

#Since Superintendent Heatley has been in office, Goree said, the personnel policy has changed several times. Her concern is that, when changes are being made, the immediate supervisors, who oversee employees, are “being taken out of the decision process.

#“Everything goes through [human resources,]” she said.

#Hendrix said he would not make a comment on Goree’s comments, or those of any other board member. “They’re the board members, It’s their policy, and they decide what the policy is going to be,” he said.

Does jotting down a checkmark every 2 minutes all day long every single day for the school year constitute teaching/learning?

This is a terrific piece written by a kindergarten teacher in Michigan, a state that did not receive Race to the Top funds but is implementing all the “assessments” RttT districts would.

I would surely be fired if I was required to do all these things with children. This is, as the teacher-author writes, lunacy.

 

And here’s a response from Deborah Meier:

 

Re-Learning What We ‘Know’ Posted: 20 Oct 2011 07:25 AM PDT Dear Diane, I loved Nancy Creech’s piece from Valerie Strauss’s Washington Post blog last summer. Thanks, Diane, for sending it along. It’s a vital reminder as the nation faces a new federal Race to the Top demand: Start testing at age 3. Or else. Creech’s detailed minute-by-minute counting of what it means to pursue the latest early-childhood “Reform Agenda” is mind-boggling! Thanks, Nancy, for writing it. I’ve done something similar to show the absurdity of most homework policies. Designing, assigning, reading, thinking about, and responding to 20 to 30 students’ homework accounts for a staggering amount of teacher time—if it’s taken seriously and conscientiously. Not to mention that one cannot observe how homework is actually “getting done,” nor who is doing it! For these reasons we decided, at Central Park East and Mission Hill, on a different approach—certainly for 3- to 7-year-olds. We made an agreement with our children’s families: You don’t tell us what to do during the hours a child is with us, and we won’t tell you what to do during the hours the children are with you. But we can both make suggestions! We promise to take your advice seriously, and we hope you will accept ours in the same spirit. Taking children’s parents seriously as their child’s first teacher requires collaboration not mandates. Nancy Creech quotes a distinguished educator who says that teaching what one already “knows” is a waste of time. I disagree. We’re constantly re-learning; it’s how things that we have “learned” get consolidated, and sometimes revised. It’s why I found teaching 4- and 5-year-olds so intellectually fascinating—because I was rethinking facts and concepts I thought I “knew,” but had barely scratched the surface of, or had—in fact—misunderstood. My (frequently retold) story about 5-year-old Darryl convincing his peers that rocks were actually alive neatly captures this idea for me. In looking at the concept of living vs. nonliving he naively he picked up on “the wrong” clues. My scientist neighbor noted that he was therefore actually “on the cutting edge of modern science.” In fact, of course, as with a lot of instruction, just re-teaching something may only entrench the confusion rather than expand understanding. Watching children “in action,” one learns the most about what they “know” (and don’t know). It’s in organizing the environment so that children are driven by curiosity to make sense of the world that they learn to drive themselves. It’s in organizing the environment and then carefully observing each of those 20 children’s response to it and to each other that we learn the vital stuff—the stuff to “teach.” If we carefully observe children at play we realize how enlightening their ignorance is if viewed respectfully and nonjudgmentally. They grow dumb (silent) when we fail to acknowledge it because it’s our job to correct mistakes. Jean Piaget had a big influence for a time on American educators. But mostly by giving labels to stages of development. I found, especially after reading Eleanor Duckworth’s The Having of Wonderful Ideas, something more fascinating. She reminded me that we, as adults, all get stuck at an early stage with respect to ideas that either don’t interest us much or where simplistic theories serve our purposes well enough. My amazement, over and over, at the light rays that came directly to me—and only me—across the lake is perfectly natural and obvious and only rarely requires realizing that it’s an “illusion.” That the ray of light is also coming straight across the water to you—standing 100 feet to my right—is absurd. Who cares? But, once you do …. Teachers have never figured out how to teach more than 10 new words a week—some of which are soon forgotten, but meanwhile children between birth and adolescence actually are learning more than 10 words a day. Some more and some less, but no normal child doesn’t do better teaching themselves, so to speak, than their teachers do. To turn the education of 3- to 7-year-olds into planned, deliberate, step-by-step “instruction” is to retard their intellectual growth. The whole idea of prepping for standardized tests as a model of teaching/learning goes against not only what is most amazing about human learning, but especially the part that engages us in the work essential to our modern world. To accept, as young children do, the fact of uncertainty, and to tolerate this state of mind, grows increasingly rare as we “grow up.” Asked constantly to choose: a,b,c, or d—Which is the one right answer?—is bound to retard growth even further. I’m stuck on the form of accountability that says “throw the rascals out.” Democracy in its many forms is the answer to accountability, if practiced close to where we all live, work, and think about the world. Best, Deborah P.S. I have spent some time observing Zucotti Park, and watching it with my kindergarten teacher eyes and ears helps me see how they have hit upon some very novel but powerful educational tools. Spending time there was fascinating. More on that next week—maybe.

Occupy Wall Street Continues – Some Comments on Economic Inequality

Occupy Wall Street (now with its own wikipedia entry that is pretty informative) continues and catches fire across the country and the globe. Working people are sick of being trampled on – and privileged people with a conscience are sick of seeing the most economically and socially vulnerable get squashed under unethical policies and practices.

 

The average CEO in America makes about 200 times more than the average workers in their companies.

Some say, “they’ve earned it – they’ve worked hard.”

I say those people must never have worked low-wage jobs and have no idea how “hard” workers work – many much harder than the often isolated, pampered, and (even if stressed out) incredibly privileged highly-paid CEOs.

It wasn’t always like this – in the 1970s, for example, the “gap” in pay between workers and CEOs was much smaller, and guess what? The rate of what economists and others call “social mobility” – that is, the rate at which real people were able to move into more secure and stable economic lives – was much much greater then than it is today in 2011.

In fact, the U.S. has almost zero social mobility today. That means that (most likely) the social class of a child’s parents will also be the social class of the child as an adult. No upward movement is expected.

While CEO salaries are higher than ever and have skyrocketed in the past 30 years to unimaginable rates, real wages for workers have stagnated and even fallen. That means the average male wage worker in the 1970′s is essentially making less money today than he made back in the good ol’ days. (My mom tells me this all the time – that she lived a much higher quality of life because of her wages in the 70s than she can today. She’s a working-class gal who worked in many different working-class jobs my entire life. She is a living economic barometer and is making less today than she did in the 70s).

How did this happen?

A simplified answer might go something like this:

1. “Trickle Down Economics” (Reagan, Thatcher, etc.) came into play. That is, keep as much money as possible in the pockets of the wealthy and they will support the economy through their spending and create more jobs – it will “trickle down” to the poor suckers at the bottom. These economic decisions essentially created Class Warfare in the 70s (apparently some folks weren’t so happy about the “social mobility” happening with more equitable treatment and pay that resulted from the Civil Rights movement). It was Class Warfare – get the money back into the hands of the nation’s richest and let them decide what to do with the economy and the fate of the common folks. The nation’s wealthiest 1% were fighting against everyone one else – and they won.

2. The emphasis on stock prices on Wall Street exploded. Fewer companies offered “pension plans” and more companies offered middle-class folks the “wonderful opportunity” to take some of the money that would have gone into a pension plan and make their “own investment decisions in the stock market.” Brilliant, right? Now the top 1% wouldn’t be the only Americans concerned about stock market prices, but millions of middle-class folks (who don’t usually know enough about the stock market to be making these kinds of decisions, and who don’t usually have enough money to be playing such high-stakes gambling games with what they do have) will want higher stock prices too.

3. Higher stock prices mean higher profits for corporations which means lower costs which means fewer and lower paid workers. (And higher salaries for CEOs who prove they can make this happen).

4. And, higher stock prices mean higher profits for corporations which means locating more and more unexplored “markets” which means for-profit corporations moving aggressively into foreign markets and often crush local small businesses that are more sustainable, treat their workers better, and care more about the local community.

5. And, higher stock prices mean an eventual “saturation” of all possible markets where there is no more possible “growth” outside so the profits have to be buttressed by inside cuts. Again, fewer and lower wage jobs (and higher salaries for CEOs who prove they can do this).

6. So then average joes (on the losing end of Class Warfare) find themselves stressing out over their stock investments just as they lose their own jobs because corporations are doing what they can do increase their profits.

7. NAFTA and other free trade agreements have exacerbated the process listed above.

8. Working wages are then at best stagnant, at worst lower or non-existent.

9. The top 1% not only increases their salaries exponentially, but benefits exponentially from increased stock prices in their companies and in companies they invest their personal retirement in.

10. When repeated over and over again – you see where this has landed us and where it might go from here if something isn’t done.

11. During this whole time (70s until now) this increase in expecting individuals to take care of themselves (re: moving from collective pensions to individual investment options with 401k, etc.) and a focus on “autonomy” and “privatization,” has also decimated policies and practices put in place for the common good: state welfare for low income families, public education that can support social mobility, foodstamp programs, and many other programs that serve as safety nets for the most vulnerable. If the mantra in the Civil Rights Movement was one of collectivity and “we are in this together,” the mantra today is, “everyone for him or herself.” And it only benefits the top 1% of our country.

 

Occupy Wall Street…

20 days and counting…

It’s about time we start talking about “economic equality” in this country. Want to call it class warfare? Fine. 99 to 1 ain’t bad odds.

Great article and video from Democracy Now!

 

and more…talks from union leaders at the march.

 

I’d recommend clicking on all the videos posted on Democracy Now.

Including this one – criticizing CNN reporter for diminishing the protest and using sarcasm to infantilize protestors. Nice one, CNN, as if thousands of people across the country engaging in “occupy wall street” isn’t enough to say that massive amounts of people are sick of the greed, sick of the poverty, sick of the joblessness, and sick of the top 1% of our population living extreme-luxury lives on the backs of working people. Who cares if the “bank bailout” actually made money for taxpayers? This isn’t about abstract taxpayers – this is about people who can’t provide for themselves in the world’s wealthiest nation. As Naomi Klein says, “we have a crisis of distribution”  -  and yes, CNN, it is a crisis regardless of the way you might use trickery to fool individual protestors into feeling ignorant. This is exactly part of the ongoing problem – a long history of the winners in hyper/neoliberal capitalism convincing the majority of the population they are ignorant and should have no say in distribution.

Go protestors!

Expose them to big houses? Thinking about Upper Middle-Class Bling

Big houses, fancy sedans, downtown boutiques filled with expensive clothing and shoes, trendy restaurant spots with hard-to-pronounce specials.

Some educators believe that the way to “motivate” working-class or poor students is to expose them to the ways  upper-middle class and wealthy people live their lives. Just let them see what else is “out there,” expose them to the bling (my word, not theirs) acquired through high paychecks, inheritances, good credit loans, and inspired by materialism and consumerism. Bigger and fancier is better – name brand purses, the most expensive imported cars, designer shoes, houses large enough to provide shelter for five families.

I sympathize with people frustrated that children and youth often grow up and find limited opportunities to sustain themselves financially. But this idea of exposing children and youth from “lower income” neighborhoods to the materialistic bling of upper middle-class wealth is more than disturbing.

People suggesting this exposure are often the same folks who demonize mothers who find a way to buy the newest sneakers for their children, or share quick glances of mortification when they see adolescents with gold caps on their teeth, or laugh out loud when a completely rebuilt older American made car slides down the street with the shiny wheels turning and a hip-hop beat thumping from the speakers.

“That’s why those kids grow up and sell drugs,” some people might say, “because they see those sneakers, those gold teeth and chains, those hooped up cars around their neighborhood and they want that bling too.”

Really now?

So you’re telling me that a $100.00 pair of shoes will make a child envious enough to become a drug runner, but showing him a $500,000.00 house will inspire him to stay in school, make good grades, go to college – and act like you?

This is really what we’re talking about folks. Upper middle-class people that say and believe these things are convinced that their own lifestyles (often of opulence and tremendous waste and materialism, though of course not always) are simply better than others’ lives. They secretly – or not so secretly – think that the gold chains and teeth and cars and music and sneakers are ugly, gaudy (is that how you spell gaudy?), disgraceful, “ghetto,” “low-class,” and disgusting. In other words, “Low Brow Bling.”

But that the material goods they acquire and consume are “classy” – pretty, understated, classic, “tasteful,” etc. etc. etc. In other words, “Aspirational Bling.”

We really need to wake up here. Bling is Bling, and using materialistic bling as a lure for supposedly getting kids to stay in school and “be like us, instead of like those people in your community” is the most absurd, classist, self-absorbent, egotistical, naive, ignorant, clueless, contradictory thing I’ve heard of.

Kids will stay in school and engage themselves when they feel like they belong, when they are valued, when they are treated with dignity and respect, when they are given some choice and power over their school experiences, and when they are motivated and inspired by the work they do there.

It’s as simple as that.

No bling required.

In fact, all that upper middle-class bling might just offend and alienate the very students some are trying to inspire and make them work extra hard to get away from anyone who represents it.

I haven’t even gotten to the unsustainability of persistent consumption of bling in the upper classes…but think about this: What if every family in North America had a 3,000 square foot home that required increasing amounts of energy to heat, cool, and water? What if every family in North America bought the newest, fanciest imported car from Europe? And on and on and on….you can see where I’m going with this.

Using one “class’s” Bling as a lure because it is positioned as infinitely better than the working-class or poor community’s Bling is simply unethical.

Encouraging more and more consumption of bigger and costlier things is simply wrong-headed and short-minded.

We have to really think long and hard about what it is we hope children and youth get out of our school systems – and surely it’s more than hoping they are envious enough to become like someone else, or motivated enough to work harder and harder so they can buy bigger and more things.

The American Dream – if there ever was one or ever can be one – must be about more than making yourself like someone else and aiming to buy  ”classier” Bling.

“Time to Tax the Rich” says one of the world’s richest men

Thanks to MV for passing this along – Warren Buffett has always gone out on limbs and here he goes again. He knows our country – especially our country’s politicians – has lost its way and fairly taxing the most wealthy is exactly what can lead us to the right path. In this article he tells of paying around 17% of his taxable income while many middle-class Americans pay up to 40% of their taxable incomes. Buffett calls it “coddling the rich” and I couldn’t agree more. Coddling those at the very top of our income earning ladder who have acquired the majority of the economic resources in our country makes us a country of extreme Haves and Have-Nots. Those who have abundance wealth enjoy more tax credits and access to powerful people while paying a much smaller overall income tax, and those who are on the bottom 90% of the wealth ladder pay higher taxes, get less from the government in terms of tax credits and safety nets, and end up barely being able to pay their bills and feed their families.

And what about “entitlements”? I have practiced a new response to all those people who tell me that “government entitlement programs must go” before we raise taxes on anyone:

1. Do you own a home? Are you paying a mortgage? Then you are part of (probably the nation’s largest) entitlement program – it’s called your mortgage interest tax credit and in many cases it earns you more per year than a family receives from the government in food stamps per year.

2. Are you, or do you know, someone who owns land registered as agricultural for tax purposes? Wooops. There’s another entitlement program.

3. Have you taken on any home improvement projects to lower energy costs and submitted those receipts for a tax credit? Hmmmm….

4. Do you send your child to private school and live in a state where there is a loophole for claiming that tuition as charitable contributions to an educational institution? There’s another.

5. And what about these entitlements: You are entitled to police security in your community; You are entitled to being protected by a fire department if you need them for any reason; You are entitled to drive and walk on public roads and sidewalks; You are entitled to free and public education from grades Kindergarten through 12. Want to get rid of those too?

We are not yet entitled to any of these things with dignity if we are poor or struggling in any way, but there sure is pride and dignity in receiving that mortgage interest tax credit/entitlement!

Thanks Warren – we need more of you and your fellow billionaires to speak out loudly and clearly.

 

Riots in London and Connections to U.S. Politics and “Society”

Hey all – thanks to a friend for sending this along. I have grown more impatient with the “These are your children, control them!” response from UK officials to the riots in London that resulted from a police officer killing a young man of color. UK officials are now considering the eviction of all families related to any accused in the riots. Great – so then the disenfranchised, angry, resentful collection of working-class and poor (mostly) immigrants will be homeless. This is a terrific solution! That should certainly prevent any future uprisings.

Is this an uprising? Or is it just a bunch of hoodlum adolescents expressing their greed and self-righteousness the way UK officials make them out to be?

It may be an uprising.

We weren’t surprised by the uprisings in the Middle East this year, but somehow people are less inclined to speak of “uprisings” in the “civilized, western” world including metropolitan London.

But this may just be an uprising.

Margaret Thatcher (the woman who spoke the words “There is no such thing as society” quoted at the bottom of this article in The Guardian) and her cronies including everyone involved in the Reagan era politics wanted “individuals” who were solely responsible for themselves and no one else – just as no one else would be responsible for those individuals – would be bound to consumerism and market fetishes and not worry about something so abstract as “society.”

Congratulations.

This is a terrific article and a nice primer for folks not familiar with “neoliberal” policies of the last 30-40 years and their implications.

 

FABULOUS speech by Linda Darling-Hammond!

Thanks to JB for sending this via email…

From the Washington Post:

Posted at 07:30 PM ET, 08/01/2011

Darling-Hammond: The mess we are in

By Valerie Strauss

Stanford University Education Professor Linda Darling-Hammond helped Barack Obama draft his educational plan when he was a presidential candidate, and advised him on education issues during the transition between Obama’s 2008 election and 2009 inauguration. Since then, she has opposed the standardized test-based school reform policies of the Obama administration. Her speech at last Saturday’s Save Our Schools March in Washington D.C. explains the extent of the trouble public education is in. Here it is.

Darling-Hammond directs the Stanford University Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and was founding director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. A former president of the American Educational Research Association, Darling-Hammond focuses her research, teaching, and policy work on issues of school restructuring, teacher quality and educational equity.

Darling-Hammond’s speech:

Many people are asking: Why are we here? We are here because we are committed to a strong public education system that works for ALL our children. We are here because we want to prepare children for the 21st century world they are entering, not for an endless series of multiple-choice tests that increasingly deflect us from our mission to teach them well. We are here to protest the policies that produce the increasingly segregated and underfunded schools so many of our children attend, and we are here to represent the parents, educators and community members who fight for educational opportunity for them against the odds every day.

We are here to say it is not acceptable for the wealthiest country in the world to be cutting millions of dollars from schools serving our neediest students; to be cutting teachers by the tens of thousands, to be eliminating art, music, PE, counselors, nurses, librarians, and libraries (where they weren’t already gone, as in California); to be increasing class sizes to 40 or 50 in Los Angeles and Detroit.

It is not acceptable to have schools in our cities and poor rural districts staffed by a revolving door of beginning and often untrained teachers, many of whom see this as charity work they do on the way to a real job. And it is not acceptable that the major emphasis of educational reform is on bubbling in Scantron test booklets, the results of which will be used to rank and sort schools and teachers, so that those at the bottom can be fired or closed – not so that we will invest the resources needed actually to provide good education in these schools.

We are here to challenge the aggressive neglect of our children. With 1 out of 4 living in poverty — far more than any other industrialized country (nearly double what it was 30 years ago); a more tattered safety net – more who are homeless, without health care, and without food security; a more segregated and inequitable system of public education, in which the top schools spend 10 times more than the lowest spending; we nonetheless have a defense budget larger than that of the next 20 countries combined and greater disparities in wealth than any other leading country.

We have produced a larger and more costly prison system than any country in the world — we have 5% of the world’s population and 25% of its inmates — populated primarily by high school dropouts on whom we would not spend $10,000 a year when they were in school, but we will spend more than $40,000 a year when they are in prison – a prison system that is now directly devouring the money we should be spending on education.

But our leaders do not talk about these things. They say there is no money for schools – and of poor children, they say: “Let them eat tests.”

And while many politicians talk of international test score comparisons, they rarely talk about what high-performing countries like Finland, Singapore, and Canada actually do: They ensure that all children have housing, health care, and food security. They fund their schools equitably. They invest in the highest-quality preparation, mentoring and professional development for teachers and school leaders, completely at government expense. They organize their curriculum around problem-solving and critical thinking skills. And they test students rarely (in Finland, not at all) – and almost never with multiple-choice tests.

Many of the top-performing nations rely increasingly on assessments that include research projects, scientific investigation, and other intellectually challenging work – developed and scored by teachers – just as progressive educators here have been urging for years.

None of these countries uses test scores to rank and sort teachers – indeed the Singaporean minister of education made a point of noting at the recent international summit on teaching that they believe such a practice would be counterproductive – and none of them rank and punish schools – indeed several countries forbid this practice. They invest in their people and build schools’ capacity to educate all their students.

Meanwhile, our leaders advocate for teachers with little training – who will come and go quickly, without costing much money, without vesting in the pension system, and without raising questions about an increasingly prescriptive system of testing and teaching that lines the pockets of private entrepreneurs (who provide teacher-proofed materials deemed necessary because there are so many underprepared novices who leave before they learn to teach).

Our leaders seek to solve the problem of the poor by blaming the teachers and schools that seek to serve them, calling the deepeninglevels of poverty an ‘excuse,’ rewarding schools that keep out and push out the highest need students, and threatening those who work with new immigrant students still learning English and the growing number of those who are homeless, without health care and without food. Are there lower scores in under-resourced schools with high-need students? Fire the teachers and the principals. Close the schools. Don’t look for supports for their families and communities, equitable funding for their schools, or investments in professional learning. Don’t worry about the fact that the next schools are – as researchers have documented – likely to do no better. If the banks are failing, we should fire the tellers. [And whatever you do, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.]

But public education has a secret weapon: the members of communities and the profession like yourselves who are committed first and foremost to our children and who have the courage to speak out against injustice.

This takes considerable courage – of the kind that has caused each of you to be here today. Remember, as Robert F. Kennedy said:

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”

Thank you for each ripple of hope you create – for each and every time you do what is right for children. Thank you for your courage and your commitment. It is that courage and commitment that will, ultimately, bring our country to its senses and save our schools. Keep your hand on the plow. Hold on!