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Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1196
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 7:16 pm: | 
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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/03/13/public_school_privatization/index.h tml
I just read this piece -- and some great slightly dated linked articles at the end -- and found myself interested. Not looking for the usual knee-jerk reactions, but if anyone else out there is familiar with this, I'm curious. Having lived near Philly and heard of their educational travails over the years, I would be eager to see something work for them. I admit to being a person who thinks it may be time to reconsider what high school should and could be like. |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1884
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 8:18 pm: |
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What are the usual knee-jerk reactions? |
Gregg Betheil
Citizen
Username: Greggbetheil
Post Number: 19
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 10:39 pm: |
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Cynicalgirl:
Thank you for your thought provoking admission: "it may be time to reconsider what high school should and could be like."
I am currently doing work in Philadephia with their high schools. More changes are on the way there in the near future as they begin to pursue a robust smalls schools strategy similar to New York, Boston, Chicago, San Diego, Oakland and other major US cities.
Bill Gates, while speaking to the National Governor's Assocation last month, introduced a novel term into the dialogue on high school reform. He stated that our high schools are not broken, but rather "obselete." The implication is that they are functioning as designed, but are no longer relevant for the demands and expectations of this day and age. Rather than fixing the obselete or going back to the way it used to be, we must consider replacement with something new and different.
Not sure if this qualifies as knee-jerk, but I would welcome a substantive conversation on the institution of high school, without devolving at this point, into the specifics of our particular high school. Here are 2 links to provide some broad background:
http://www.schoolredesign.net/ and
http://www.hsalliance.org |
monster
Supporter
Username: Monster
Post Number: 646
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 11:40 pm: |
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Have to say that I agree with what Bill Gates said, our whole institute of education needs be overhauled.
The only thing I wish, is that all of his financial help didn't come with Microsoft attached, there are other options, and the schools should have some leeway.
While it's still a good thing, I see the other side of it too...marketing, and a way to insure their future.
Get the kids using their product now, and hopefully in the future, both professionally and personally. |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1197
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 6:25 am: |
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nan: The backwards looking ones, and the (to me anyway) all corporate influence is bad ones.
Gregg: I'll read these. I stumbled upon the article because I read salon, and at the same time find myself wondering about school districts with intractable problems. Philly, Newark and similar. Also, in a different way, the big anonymous schools of the midwest.
monster: I share the concern about the MS lable/money (or anyone company's). But, I think the idea of MS using their money in a worthy direction is very sound. I find myself waiting for someone to adopt Newark, educationally and industrially. I do think Gates is more right than not about education needing an overhaul. And not just to produce striated classes of worker bees. |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1198
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 6:36 am: |
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I wasn't into this at the time so sketchy on details, but a tiny example of corporate + high school = hopeful future for students that I saw when in Delaware was this: a Wilmington high school, possibly one with a technical specialty, had a partnership with an area credit card bank such that students who wanted to followed a traditional plus tech curriculum. They did help desk and LAN set up work in the bank's offices. The students were by all accounts incredibly diligent, effective and sharp. Many of the students were not necessarily college bound before. My understanding is that many went on to community college and beyond as a result of their work experience and window into different kinds of work than they might've imagined. This was especially so for young women.
I'm thinking that for them, high school stopped being this holding tank/wait zone before their real future turned up. And yes, paid employment helped as delayed gratification can be a tough concept for HS kids. |
J. Crohn
Supporter
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 2100
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 7:00 pm: |
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Gregg, thanks for the info and the links. I'm intrigued by this line of thinking that values "rigor and relevance," small schools, personalization. It seems to me that many (most?) adolescents can benefit from a "tight" social/educational context.
I think Bill Gates is not the first to suggest that high school education is obsolete, by the way. Some years ago, MIT's Stephen Pinker pointed out that the subjects ordinarily taught in school were no longer as relevant as they should be. For instance, I believe he observed that most kids would have little use for calculus in their careers, but everyone ought to have a basic understanding of statistics. Similarly, economics is not a mainstay requirement in most public schools, but really should be.
I think, too, that Americans don't learn enough foreign language (I can't recall if this was one of Pinker's complaints as well, but he's a linguist so it might well have been), especially mideastern and Asian tongues. Perhaps there's also an ovreremphasis on local and US history, and not enough on world history.
Gates would, I assume, place the emphasis on technology. But I think there's also quite a lot to be said for learning how to use power tools... |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1199
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 7:32 pm: |
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Thinking more about all of this ...
I think high school could use a re-think for many students -- lest anyone think this is just about job-training or similar. I personally loathed high school after 10th grade (the start of it, back when). I was very aware of the socialization aspect, and wasn't much into it though I did get very good grades and tested well. High school seemed designed for jocks and joiners, theatre people, Ag club people, pep rallys. I was eager to go to college classes which I viewed as more relevant and more academic, absent as they were of any of high schools' social angle. I did work/study just to get away from some of it. Working at Burger King beat the average elective once I had enough credits.
So I'm thinking that maybe a lot of students don't find high school the most productive use of their time. Some like me were lucky enough to make good grades while cutting a lot. Others, maybe not so lucky, get into fights and don't try. Perhaps if the school felt smaller, and the curricula more immediately relevant, much of the same material would become more palatable because it would be in context of something the student actually cared about, saw value in.
Nice as all the clubs and what not are, it may be that the high school experience as it is today is not exactly what suits a fair number of kids. Hence, my interest in alternatives.
Too, if learning/training really is the lifetime activity it seems to be, artificial ideas around the time for learning and the setting become all the more silly. I've known many kids to take a job right out of high school, only to return to 2 year colleges and more once they truly see it as necessary to their futures.
And no, I do not think that going to a 4 year school, Ivy or not, right after high school insures much these days. First year or so of college often looks like prolonged high school/adolescence, without much seriousness of purpose.
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nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1885
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 8:31 pm: |
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Is everyone just going to believe what Bill Gates says about high schools without question? What makes him an expert? Does no one even wonder about what his motivation might be and consider that the education and well being of our children might not be the major priority.
Here's something to think about--an except from Gerald Bracey's response to the Gates speech at the educational summit:
==============
A few quotes:
"In math and science, our fourth graders rank among the top students in the world, but our 12th graders are near the bottom. China has six times as many college graduates in engineering."
Wow, what a couple of well connected sentences, huh? I'll be he was the bain of his composition teachers. Both the speech and the op-ed are like this. Hodge podge, mish mash. I explained in my piece why the 4th-grade-12th-grade comparison is wrong, but Gates bought it. As for China with 6 times as many engineers, that's its hard luck. Who wants to live in a world of engineers? And, a Chinese scholar on the BBC yesterday pointed out that China has 4 times as many people, but only ll% of the GDP as the US, meaning each Chinese produces between 3 and 4 percent what an American does. This is our competitor???
"Today, most jobs that allow you to support a family require some postsecondary education...Unfortunately, only half of all students who enter high school ever enroll in a postsecondary institution." And it's not that people haven't thought about this before. Remember The Forgotten Half from 1988?
Gates and the others always talk about the equity aspect of this and that is a serious problem. But they absolutely refuse to deal with the distribution of goods aspect: why are the captains of industry generating so many jobs that won't support a family? Five of the top 8 richest people in the country are Waltons. But what do they pay their people at Walmart (when they're not locking them in overnight)?
If everyone qualifies for a family-supporting job, that will just drive the wages down for those jobs. Supply and demand is operative so far as I know. Bureau of Labor Statistics stats show that most jobs (not most family supporting jobs) don't require anything much: Retail sales accounts for more jobs than the 10 fastest growing jobs combined. Janitors, fast food workers and low level construction workers and other service industry jobs are the other huge categories. Why not pay these people a living, not a minimum wage (which, by the way, hasn't gone up in 8 years)? And if everyone can qualify for a family supporting job A) who will do these jobs and B) won't employers use capricious criteria in hiring?
I don't think Gates is seeing Potemkin schools, but I also don't think he's thinking critically about them. There's too much garbage in his speech--he's bought the BRT propaganda line hook, line and sinker.
He says we need to reform schools to keep our competitiveness. I say "Prove it." "A Nation At Risk" said precisely the same thing: "In order to keep and improve on the slim competitive edge we still retain in world markets, we must dedicate outselves to the reform of our educational system."
Back in the late 40's, we didn't have to worry about competition because most of the world was The Third World and the rest was the devastated world. World War II, you recall. So the problem with the schools was they weren't generating enough scientists, engineers and mathematicians to compete, not for markets, but to compete with the Russians in the space and weapon races. So said CIA chief Allen Dulles to Admiral Hy Rickover. Hope CIA intelligence was better then than now.
As I more than implied in "Education's Ground Hog Day (Ed Week, Feb 2), anyone making the economic competition argument has to show some direct evidence. I think it's just a scare technique. Make people afraid of the future and you can control them. Wolf, wolf, wolf. It is, as philosopher Harry Frankfurt says in his little tome, "••••••••." (On ••••••••, Princeton University Press, 2005).
In the meantime:
"American economic competitiveness with Japan and other nations is to a considerable degree a function of monetary, trade, and industrial policy, and of decisions made by the President and Congress, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Departments of the Treasury, Commerce, and Labor. Therefore, to conclude that problems of international competitiveness can be solved by educational reform, especially educational reform defined solely as school reform, is not merely utopian and millennialist, it is at best a foolish and at worst a crass effort to direct attention away from those truly responsible for doing something about competitiveness and to lay the burder instead on the schools. It is a device that has been used repeatedly in the history of American education."
Lawrence Cremin
Popular Education and Its Discontents, 1989, p. 102-103.
(Taken from a post written by Gerald Bracey on the Assesment Reform Network website) |
J. Crohn
Supporter
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 2101
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 9:20 pm: |
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Gregg, if you wouldn't mind helping those of us who are interested keep the discussion on topic, would you please expand on this:
"The implication is that they are functioning as designed, but are no longer relevant for the demands and expectations of this day and age. Rather than fixing the obselete or going back to the way it used to be, we must consider replacement with something new and different."
I assume your work has given you some ideas about the ways in which a high school education might evolve to become more relevant. In an ideal world, what might such a high school look like? In particular, what might it look like, and how might it work, here?
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Gregg Betheil
Citizen
Username: Greggbetheil
Post Number: 20
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 11:29 pm: |
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Sorry for the gap in postings. Just got back from a Board session (to avoid rumors, we meet at this time of year in Executive Session to conduct the Superintendent's evaluation-see other thread).
A few things to comment on:
1) I would encourage a separation of Bill Gates, Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. While there are obvious connections and some will take issue, we need be sure we are talking about them differently. The Philly project cynicalgirl started with is in fact a Microsoft project. On the other hand, much of the high school reform work underway in our major cities is drawing support from the Gates Foundation (gatesfoundation.org), which has a focus on global health and American High Schools.
2) The school in Wilmington, DE is a school my organization worked with to establish an Academy of Finance. It is not a "vocational" program in the traditional sense, but rather a career-themed small learning community. The theme provides context for making rigorous academic work relevant to students' interests.
3) As to J. Crohn's question as to what it might look like in an ideal world and how it might work here, I'll adddress the first part, but think it is premature to be talking about application here. As I said above, I think a discussion on the institution of high school can serve to inform future conversations about our own high school. To dive right in now would too easily devolve.....
As to what the ideal would look like, let me share some work that is in progress from the National High School Alliance (see link above). I contributed to the development of a paper due out in early April, and have included some excerpts from the draft to move our thread forward:
The Alliance has identified six core principles and recommended strategies that will foster high academic achievement, close the achievement gap, and promote civic and personal growth among all high-school-age youth in our high schools and communities. At the center of the Advocacy Framework is the National High School Alliance’s belief that the purpose of high school is to ensure that all high-school-age youth are ready for college, careers, and active civic participation.
Core Principles
1. Personalized Learning Environments
2. Academic Engagement of All Students
3. Empowered Educators
4. Accountable Education Leadership
5. Engaged Community and Youth
6. Integrated System of High Standards, Curriculum Instruction, Assessments, and Supports
The National High School Alliance believes that there is no one-size-fits-all model that will be effective and sustainable in all contexts. Thus, the Advocacy Framework provides a set of core principles around which a broad range of context-specific designs and strategies can be interpreted to meet local needs. These principles, however, are non-negotiable. In order to fully transform high school and district cultures in a way that serves all students, policies and practices must be developed to address each principle.
___________________________________
To start to see what some of these principles look like in action, take a look at http://www.whatkidscando.org/portfoliosmallschools/portfoliohome.html
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nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1886
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 5:42 am: |
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Well, last time I looked this thread was specifically on what's going on Philadelphia with the privatization of a public school.
So, I don't think pointing out the motives of those involved is irrelevant and I don't think you can just "separate" them out. I happen to think the small schools movement is a good one and I recommend Linda Darling-Hammond's book, "The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Creating Schools that Work" for reason why they make sense. Darling-Hammond is one of the featured speakers on the conference Greg provided us a link to above.
But, there is real concern here how the excellent notion of small schools is being deployed by a corporate giant. Right in the Salon article it states this.
quote:
The Philadelphia project has no ties to the Gates Foundation, but small schools and integrated technology are trends that the Gates Foundation has popularized. The Gateses have unquestionably done marvelous things for students -- provided computers, trained faculty to teach with computers, reduced class size. And in the process, they've spread the idea of specialized academies and encouraged a market-based approach to school construction. District CEO Vallas' driving passion -- many small neighborhood schools that offer kids a free-market choice of where they go -- is vintage Gates.
But the question, as always, is who actually gets to choose. The independent group Research for Action, which released a report on the effects of privatization in Philadelphia last May, has found that citizens have been closed out of decisions surrounding partnerships.
"There's very little public input about which companies come to Philadelphia and why, and to which schools they'll be assigned and for what they'll be held accountable," said RFA's Eva Gold. "Our concern is that given that public education is a public institution, there should be public dialogue and discussion about these issues, with the public playing a role."
"The district is using the small-schools language, but what's the real definition of 'small schools'? Community control, community involvement in decision making ... It's sort of the opposite of what the district is trying to do," Eric Baxon, executive director of the Philadelphia Student Union, told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
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Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1200
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 6:36 am: |
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nan: I'm less interested in the veracity of all aspects of Gates' argument than I am the problem he and others describe. Yeah, I'm suspicious of just about any entity -- including the higher ed establishment and corporations. But, seems like sooner or later it is wise to explore some alternatives, no matter who's funding.
And I agree that the economic problems associated with the government's stance, multinationals etc. help create the the job crisis. But, in the very short run, what I'm interested in is the problem of how to keep high schoolers engaged in learning necessary content and skills to get them on the road to productive employment and a satisfying future. If they're fighting, or cutting school, or not learning none of that will happen. At the same time, if we only offer a kind of school experience that doesn't reach them, seems like none of that will happen.
Do I love some of the employers where I used to live? The credit card banks, etc.? No, not at all. But people have to make a living, and better that an 18 year old have a job as a check processor or a LAN admin in a joint with "Think of Yourself as a Customer" signs all over the place than no job at all. Once a person has their basic needs seen to, he or she is in a better position to seek more. Just looking for ways to help people get to the first rung.
Yes, I read the critique paragraphs, and in fact I've been googling for more. If I were a parent in Philly, I think I'd look favorably upon business's saying that if my child graduates from this program s/he will have a job and have completed high school requirements, v the situation today, run by the school district.
Gregg: Which org is affiliated with the Wilmington High School you mention? And, is that the program I might be referring to, with placement of students in area business?
Utterly anecdotal and unsubstantiated: The few kids I know of who attended such programs also tended to clean up their interpersonal act (behavior, etc.) because the workplace required it. Markedly different outcome from many of the prospective student teachers a friend of mine places who don't understand why they have to show up on time for their student teaching, and in appropriate clothing (to match the dress codes of the schools they're about to go into).
I'm just allowing as how sometimes the message comes better and the behavioral change easier if it's tied to a goal that young people can relate to, and really seek (often, gainful employment, respect of non parent/teacher adults, etc.) |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1201
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 6:57 am: |
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Just realized I was needlessly harsh, possibly especially to nan.
What I'm trying to say (before I get ready for my middle class wage slave job) is that some kids seem not to know how to crack the middle class jobs code -- white, black, female, male, whatever. They don't relate to or know how to get from where they are, to there. High school land 4 year college can seem like abstract, delaying tactics. They don't have really immediate role models, patterns of behavior, sense of why certain knowlege matters. So, I'm thinking that anything that helps give them a road map that they can directly experience will be of use and context.
I barely knew how, and took some on faith, as I had little experience of it in my family. Plus, at the time, it mostly happened for girls via their husband prospects. I'm guessing that's still true for many kids. And that code can be cracked, even if you're not born to a family/live in a neighborhood where it's the norm. Maybe other high school types can be a great aid, and solve a variety of issues. |
tjohn
Citizen
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 2956
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 7:15 am: |
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Nan,
For better or worse, he who brings the cash calls the shots. So, if corporate giants get involved in education, we can expect schools based on their ideas. If the taxpayers fund education, we can expect taxpayer input.
Right now, American taxpayers are untterly unwilling to pay the cost of maintaning America whether it is our schools or the rest of our infrastructure so we are stuck with handouts from corporate America. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5863
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 1:19 pm: |
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I just read this opinion piece and found it interesting. I can't claim to know enough about education to agree or disagree with the piece's conclusion and recommendations. But either way, it's good food for thought.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/opinion/15ravitch.html
login: goforitall
password: testee
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Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1203
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 1:29 pm: |
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I thought that was a good little piece, Tom. Thanks for posting. I get the point about dangers of small high schools (500 or fewer). Maybe the intimacy/personal can be achieved in a larger school with that academies idea? |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5864
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 2:10 pm: |
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Well, Columbia High School has "clusters" for the ninth grade whereby each cluster has a set of teachers. This is like the teams in MMS. The cluster teachers have conferences about the progress of every single student. The aim is to create a "smaller" environment, and I think it succeeds moderately well. The question is, why not continue that in tenth through twelfth grades? To answer my own question, it's probably to offer the students a greater breadth of offerings. |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1887
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 8:21 pm: |
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Cynicalgirl,
I agree with much of your concern about high school, but I think the idea you are getting that Microsoft will, as professional educators have supposedly failed to do, enable poor and cluess kids to take interest and adopt middle class values is not substantiated by evidence. For profit schools have never been shown to be sucessful. It seems to me our district has as much chance of doing that as anything Microsoft is putting forward.
The problem I have with your statement that "I'm less interested in the veracity of all aspects of Gates' argument than I am the problem he and others describe." Is that the problem he describes--the "obsolete" high school--is of questionable veracity it self. Sure high school is boring for some and sure it could be improved, but I am disgusted at the notion that teenagers should be spending all of their time focused intensely on college prep materials so America won't loose its global edge.
A big part of being middle class is getting to hang out with your friends and relax. There is something wrong with thinking you need to be major genius to earn a living. When I hear these people talking about rigor it makes me think of rigor mortus.
But, Gates is hardly the first to assert the notion of high schools Mark Twain-like deminse and I feel necessary to once again point out the history of public school bashing behind some of this. (that means another long article--I'm sorry--it's difficult to link to ed week they take forever getting passwords)
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Published: February 2, 2005
COMMENTARY
Education’s ‘Groundhog Day’
By Gerald W. Bracey
Only the foolish would think that 13-year-olds’ skills at bubbling in answer sheets would mean much for a nation’s well-being.
Media stories about public schools show the reporters as non-Bill Murray characters in “Groundhog Day.” In the 1993 movie, the same Groundhog Day repeats itself over and over again, but only Murray’s character sees the repetition. About schools, the media report the present with no apparent historical awareness that it’s the same story once again. As a consequence, Americans keep waking up to headlines declaring that, apparently for the first time ever, the public school sky is falling. The public doesn’t seem to notice the recurrences, either.
On Dec. 7, 2004, papers presented the results from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA 2003, announcing,“U.S. Teens Have Weak Practical Math Skills” (USA Today). The Wall Street Journal and The Christian Science Monitor tied for scariest headline of the day: “Economic Time Bomb,” said the Journal; “Math + Test = Trouble for the U.S. Economy,” said the Monitor.The Monitor quoted Susan Traiman of the Business Roundtable: “It’s very disturbing for business if the capacity to take what you know … and apply it to something novel is difficult for U.S. teenagers.” (The OECD’s assertions that PISA measures “application” are both glib and without theoretical or conceptual grounding.)
On Dec. 14, 2004, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS 2003, presented us with better news, and most of the media overlooked it. Those that did report it expressed worries that other countries, “particularly in Asia, continue to outperform the United States [in] fields at the heart of research, innovation, and economic competitiveness” (Associated Press).
For many years, the media, the Business Roundtable, and others have saturated us with a myth: Low test scores = economic perdition. In 1998, the headlines over stories about the Third International Mathematics and Science Study read: "U.S. Seniors Near Bottom in World Test," (March 4, 1998); “Why America Has the World’s Dimmest Bright Kids” (The Wall Street Journal).
Under the headlines we read, once again, our awful schools were leading us to economic ruin. No one seemed to remember the headlines from four years earlier: “America’s Economy, Back on Top” (The New York Times);“ ‘Rising Sun’ Meets ‘Rising Sam’ ” (The Washington Post); “America Cranks It Up” (U.S. News & World Report). Although we did not know it at the time, those headlines heralded the longest sustained economic expansion in the nation’s history.
Did improved schools explain the turnaround? Not according to the critics. A mere three months after “America’s Economy, Back on Top,” the then-chief executive officer of IBM and perennial school scold, Louis V. Gerstner Jr., took to the op-ed page of the Times with “Our Schools Are Failing. Do We Care?” They are failing, said Gerstner, because their “products” can’t compete with the products manufactured in European and Asian factories, er, schools.
Gerstner, not admitting he was wrong 10 years ago, recently turned his attention from students to teachers in an Education Week Commentary ("An Education Reform Agenda for the Next Four Years—and Beyond," Jan. 5, 2005) imparting the same Groundhog Day message: We need better teachers “because, as Asian nations get their information economies firing on all cylinders, America’s global competitiveness is under threat.”
If neither our teachers nor our kids can compete with their Asian peers, one must wonder why the World Economic Forum keeps ranking the United States first or second in its global-competitiveness ratings of 104 nations. When we fall out of first, events outside the control of the schools cause the slump. In the latest WEF ratings, we slipped to second behind Finland because the World Economic Forum didn’t like a number of Bush programs and policies.
In 1992, again reacting to an international study, the media declared the schools’ performance dismal. “In World Study, U.S. Students Fare Poorly,” said The Washington Post. Newsweek was more succinct: “An ‘F’ in World Competition.”
Both Gerstner and Newsweek trumpeted a theory that arrived fully formed in 1983’s mostly forgotten A Nation at Risk: A developed nation without high test scores is doomed. And our scores, the Risk report said, looked bad. “There was a steady decline in science achievement scores,” it argued. “Average achievement of high school students is lower now than 26 years ago when Sputnik was launched.”
Measured against other countries, we looked even worse: “International comparisons reveal that on 19 academic tests American students were never first or second and, in comparison with other industrialized nations, were last seven times.” The risk was clear. No longer was the threat that the Soviets would vaporize us with nukes. Given our poor test scores, we risked having our friends, especially Germany, Japan, and South Korea, steal our profits. Risk exhorted us: “If only to keep and improve on the slim competitive edge we still retain in world markets, we must dedicate ourselves to the reform of our educational system. …”
A few years after A Nation at Risk appeared, the economy of high-scoring Japan slumped. It has yet to recover. Japanese kids still ace tests. They finished sixth in math and second in science in PISA 2003, and second, second, third, and fifth in the four rankings in TIMSS 2003. But somehow their stellar performance with tests doesn’t grow Japan’s gross domestic product.
When Risk appeared, we, too, were slipping into recession, and many variations on lousy-schools-are-producing-a-lousy-workforce- and-that-is-killing-us-in-the-global-marketplace were heard. Then the economy recovered. Then slipped enough to deny George H.W. Bush a second term. Then recovered. Then slipped. Then recovered. And all the while our test scores looked middling compared with those of other nations.
If you think critically about this myth for a moment, the disconnect between test scores and a nation’s economic health is obvious. Only the foolish would think that 13-year-olds’ skills at bubbling in answer sheets would mean much for a nation’s well-being. As if to prove that contention, the other “Asian Tiger” nations, also atop the world in test scores, saw their economies tank in the mid-1990s. Singapore, which typically outscores everyone—it scored well above even other Asian nations in all comparisons in TIMSS 2003—declared itself in recession in 2001. The slump continues: In 2003, its per capita GDP was $23,700, down from $26,500 in 1999.
At least A Nation at Risk noticed history, even if the media coverage of it did not. Its reference to Sputnik took the tale back to October of 1957, when the Russians orbited the first man-made satellite. American schools took the hit for letting the Soviets get into space first.
In red ink, the March 24, 1958, post-Sputnik cover of Life magazine screamed, “Crisis in Education.” Two high school juniors stared out from the cover, a stern-faced Alexei Kutzkov in Moscow, and an easy-smiling Stephen Lapekas in Chicago. Inside, Alexei was seen conducting complicated science experiments, reading aloud from Sister Carrie in his English class, and using his free time to learn even more skills. By contrast, photos showed Stephen walking his girlfriend home, rehearsing for the school musical, practicing his swimming stroke, and otherwise having an easy time because “the standards of education are shockingly low.” In one picture, Stephen retreats from a geometry problem on the blackboard. Says the text: “Stephen amused class with remarks about his ineptitude.”
(I tracked down Stephen Lapekas. He became an Air Force fighter pilot, then a commercial pilot. Not bad for a slacker in a system with “shockingly low” standards—his son said Life chose him because he looked so average; “he was a C student and thought of college as a golfer might think of a sandtrap.” Receiving little cooperation from the Russian Embassy, I enlisted the assistance of Anne Garrels, then the Moscow correspondent for National Public Radio, in the search for Alexei Kutzkov. The hunt intrigued her, but several months later she called to say that, in spite of the many specific facts I provided about Alexei, his school, and his teachers, she had been unable to find any evidence he ever existed. She questioned the story’s veracity: “There is no way in hell that an American journalist and photographer could have gotten into a typical Moscow high school at the time.”)
Of course, the economic-free-fall myth is sustained in part by the media’s errors of omission: Happy results do not see print. When the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, or PIRLS, appeared in April of 2003, only four papers carried bylined articles. About 15 other, mostly small-market, papers picked up all or part of an Associated Press story.
The non-news was good: Only three of 35 participating countries scored significantly higher than the United States. American students attending schools with fewer than 10 percent of their students in poverty stomped Sweden, the highest-scoring nation overall (Finland did not participate). American students in schools with 10 percent to 25 percent poverty also outscored Sweden. American students in schools with 25 percent to 50 percent poverty attained a score that, had those students constituted a nation, would have ranked it fourth. Those three categories of students contain 58 percent of all U.S. students. Only students in schools struggling to cope with more than 75 percent of their students in poverty scored below the international average. The same analyses show similar results for TIMSS 2003 (they’re not available yet for PISA 2003).
Alas, this miserable coverage of PIRLS represented progress. When its predecessor had appeared 10 years earlier, American 9-year-olds were second in the world and our 14-year-olds were eighth; and for both ages, only one country (Finland) had a significantly higher score. Press coverage was nil.
For almost 50 years, the media have repeatedly played the schools-are-failing-our-economy’s-sunk tune, but neither they nor the public seem aware that it’s an old refrain—and false. It’s education’s Groundhog Day all over again.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/02/02/21bracey.h24.html?querystring=brace y%20groundhog%20education&print=1
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nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1888
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 8:43 pm: |
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Tjohn,
The thing is, they are not really bringing the cash. If you read the Salon article, it is the city of Philadelphia that is coming up with 50 million to fund the project. Microsoft is just supplying its own brand of project management. You have to wonder if it is a fair trade.
quote:What Microsoft has to offer the district isn't money -- after all, if it funded the Philadelphia program, the argument goes, the School of the Future couldn't be replicated. Could the company realistically traverse the globe, handing out checks in Bora Bora and Belize? No, what Microsoft is providing is better than money. It's Management 101.
"Microsoft has more to offer than just technology," Vallas said. "Microsoft has their creativity to offer, their process -- the Microsoft process, the Microsoft system."
The company is helping the district streamline and modernize all of its internal bureaucratic processes -- its business operations. From record keeping, communication and information sharing to transportation, human resources and billing, Microsoft is doing what the private sector has always done for the public sector: increasing efficiency.
So, basically by selling their student body as a captive audience to Microsoft, the Philadelphia school system has invested in the belief that the "Microsoft process" is infallible and can be seamlessly transplanted and transferred to the running of a public school.
We are supposed to believe that Microsoft business model is going to close the achievement gap.
Pretty pathetic if you ask me.
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Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5872
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 8:46 pm: |
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Interesting article, nan. But I'm not sure what I think now. I appreciate the warnings of groundhog day. I know how every generation of adults tends to think that things are going downhill in a way much worse than all preceding generations. We have to be careful of that tendency.
However, if I understand the crux of this article, the author is using the macro-economy as a measure of the effectiveness of our schools. If so, then I don't buy it. That's like the latest Republican rhetoric which says that corporate profits are up, therefore everyone should be rejoicing about the economy. The problem is that the macro-economy's metrics don't effectively measure the breadth of experiences. Sure wealth overall is increasing, and increasing at a faster rate than in other countries, but what of people not at the top? That question applies to the economic picture as well as the education one.
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Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5873
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 8:49 pm: |
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Wow, nan. Your 8:43 post reminds me of how soda and candy makers squeeze their presences into schools. No thanks! |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1889
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 9:08 pm: |
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Tom,
Diane Ratvich's complaint, as always, is against any kind of progressive education. If you read her book, "Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform." you discover that she thinks Columbia Teacher's college is more responsible for damage to the 20th Century than World War II.
What I do find interesting, though, is to watch some of the usual critics chiming in to support Bill Gates endorse the kind of education they would never tolerate from the MW/SO school administration.
For example in the Salon article it is announced that in the Microsoft Philadelphia schools "Learning will be 'holistic," organized not around subjects like literature and history but around themes like the Great Depression."
Now, never mind the bizarre admission later in the article that they contracted a testing company to produce this supposed holistic curriculum, but think what would happen around here if Dr. Horoshak or Marilyn Davenport announced this type of change at a BOE meeting.
I'm guessing there would be a much different response from some of the folks on MOL who responded favorably to the initial story.
It seems to me that many view whatever is private as good, and whatever is public as bad.
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nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1890
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 9:15 pm: |
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Tom,
Our posts crossed. I was responding to your post earlier today where you put in a link to the Diane Ratvich article. I did not see your two posts above.
Bracey's point in Groundhog day is to point out that school performance does not affect global competitiveness and to be extremely skeptical when listening to corporations offer advice on school reform. |
mjc
Citizen
Username: Mjc
Post Number: 377
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 9:26 pm: |
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Re: nan's 8:43 post, and particularly...
"The company is helping the district streamline and modernize all of its internal bureaucratic processes -- its business operations. From record keeping, communication and information sharing to transportation, human resources and billing, Microsoft is doing what the private sector has always done for the public sector: increasing efficiency."
This sounds like help the SOMA district could REALLY use, and (though I never like to disagree with Tom) doesn't sound at all like the soda and candy situations, since the help that's being offered is all "back office," not directly involved with the students, unless I'm missing something.
For years, probably my biggest annoyance with the district has been that the database and communications areas are just full of holes. I smack my head and say "Why do we even buy them computers" when it turns out that multiple offices have to be notified of change of address etc. A couple of current ones: (1) the new CHS attendance system, which was supposed to save time and tighten up the reporting but I gather has taken extra classroom time AND is only partially implemented, so that attendance is actually less accurate and less info is provided to parents/guardians; and (2) the video monitoring system at CHS, which I'm guessing cost plenty and is now at maybe 1/3 or 1/2 effectiveness, since no one is actually monitoring, only retrieving film after a problem happens. I can only imagine the purchasing situation. Maybe with some streamlining of other back office work, there would even be time and $ to update or tune the heating systems.
Anybody, feel free to correct me if my facts are not good. But from the excerpt in nan's 8:43 post, this sounds like just what SOMA needs to help get a grip on non-classroom expenses and make the most of the technology the district has bought.
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nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1891
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 9:37 pm: |
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mjc,
If they just stopped at help with infrastracture and procurement I might have a better attitude about the whole thing also.
But, if you read the Salon article you see that they are determining everything from soup to nuts including the hiring of teachers and the curriculum.
quote:The deal is simple: Philadelphia is to provide $50 million for a new building, and Microsoft is to provide consulting and a project leader to help a district team realize the plans. The school is being built from the ground up, and Microsoft's muscle is bringing in experts to help execute everything: the computer equipment, teacher hiring, the curriculum, the building design, security, you name it. Basically, instead of building an educational technology showroom on its Redmond, Wash., campus (which Anthony Salcito, general manager of Microsoft education, said the company was considering), Microsoft is building a showroom in Philadelphia.
Building a new facility with 50 million dollars is not a good comparison to mataining 1920's school buildings with shrinking financial resouces. You don't see Microsoft even trying something like that.
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Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1204
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 6:32 am: |
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nan, I need to think about the recent posts more but am time-pressed this a.m. I'm not so much thinking about CHS as I am whatever apparent problems it and other high schools have. And I'm not focussed here on the bubble tests. Also, I'm not specifically considering graduation as the proof of a successful high school experience. You can graduate and still have not got as much out of it as you might have. I was thinking about the parts of the high school population who are troubled, underperforming (even by their own measure) who might be more enthused, motivated, etc. by a different approach to high school.
I hear you on the groundhog angle. Please! Please! Don't immediately draw current CHS/BOE matters into it. It may be that some of these kinds of experiments are best tried as magnet schools or similar, completely opt in. I really am trying to do something I rarely do: take a look at alternatives to traditional high school, one size fits all, that might work for disaffected kids. And just as you (I think) have certain educational opinions based on your own experience as a student, so do I (the disliking high school's socialization angle). And I was wondering how many kids have this problem, and what would help. Maybe it provides part of an answer to behavior problems and so on.
mjc: Yeah, the back office stuff is interesting and somehow I think many people would say the backoffice is the least well run at most schools, even by contemporary business standards. You'd sort of think that if that were done better, some monies might be freed up, some more time spent on community communications, getting grants and so on. |
Gordon Agress
Citizen
Username: Odd
Post Number: 76
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 9:14 am: |
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Why would a software development company be good at running a school? Yeah, Microsoft has a bazillion dollar market capitalization, but Exxon Mobile is bigger -- should they be running schools? Is it because Microsoft is a technology company? I'm not sure that I think computers have anything to do with education, except replacing typewriters and maybe teaching kids programming (and I mean C and the like, not Visual Basic or Excel).
I am all for experimenting with alternatives to failing structures, but don't be seduced by Microsoft's economic success and technology expertise -- they have nothing to do with teaching kids core skills, and the public presumption that they might creates the risk of a publicity stunt.
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Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1205
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 11:34 am: |
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To me, involving business (or post secondary educational insitutions, for that matter)in strategies for high school (and only high school) is a way of enlightening students as to possible career/job paths, the skills and knowlege necessary to them, and some manner of hands-on experience with them. Some of that skill and knowlege probably relates immediately to subjects taught in high school, but it may be that making that connection more closely would be helpful to students in encouraging them to take school seriously. Might provide a context.
I read the piece about Microsoft and thought about in context of magnet high schools, and similar programs where area industry ight be seriously at the table in terms of helping define curriculum for specialties, supplying various kinds of resource (be it equipment or other), and providing on the job experiences for kids interested in related jobs and careers. In a way, Microsoft was incidental as itself.
Perhaps what this is a way more intensive version of career day, that might reach further down into high school to help kids frame their studies and choices in terms to which they might more immediately relate. I could imagine, for example, a kid interested in IT and following that specialty getting a summer internship, or afterschool experiences related to that, with an area business. Perhaps even having parts of their curriculum utilized materials immediately related to that. Same for arts, or financial services.
I'm sure that whoever the business participating, yeah they would want some level of credit for their sponsorship and would want to influence. But, I do not necessarily think that is bad especially if students and parents get to choose.
Maybe it's not possible to discuss this without endless politics. Maybe there is no problem, and I've just had too much winter. |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1894
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 10:33 pm: |
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Cynicalgirl,
I agree there is a problem keeping many students engaged in high school studies. I'm not sure what the best approach would be. You might want to check out the small school models that Greg pointed out earlier in the thread for some ideas on what can be done to better humanize the learning enviornment.
I think some of these ideas are already in place at CHS. Tom mentioned the clusters, and I think there might be some others.
They had the kind of intern/business partnerships that you describe when I was in High school and I think they did help some kids. I was never in one but, because I was from a low income family, I qualified for some type of anti-poverty summer office job program (before Nixon killed it) and that made a world of difference for me to make the transition to college and adulthood.
So, I think those programs can be helpful, but, I'm not sure you find them much anymore. The trend today is to force everyone to do the college prep track (the Microsoft model is only CP). You know where I'm going with that so i'll just stop right here.  |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1206
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 6:29 am: |
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Thanks for the softening, nan. It's a damned shame if those kinds of programs are no longer prevalent. Perhaps they should be. And I don't see them as non-college prep track; rather, I see them as a way to make college prep track and similar work better for more kids, towards their future and in their present.
I know I'll sound like a weird sort of bleeding heart, but sometimes I see kids working at BK, or idling/disaffected, and wonder where they're headed. When I was a BK worker in high school, while I didn't like it some days, I like the money and I did see it as good for a resume and teaching me skills. I felt like I had a shot, even though I wasn't a dr/lawyer/indian chief's kid with college paid for, time for sports and a carefree life.
I'm guessing many kids do want to do something constructive with their lives, want a good job, etc. but can't relate easily to college or to the next step. Thinking different approaches to their time in high school and beyond, with more personalization, etc. might be helpful to that -- and curb some of the undesirable, unproductive behavior.
Maybe like you, I had no idea of what I could be when I grew up and had no one to tell me. And show me the path. The only thing that kept me mostly out of trouble was home training and fear. Took a long time to see any connectedness between doing a decent job at my afterschool job, certain of my classes, and my future. Some kids, it appears to me, don't even have that, and aren't so fortunate with the easily making good grades.
I am reading the stuff Greg sent along. I do think small is beautiful! Especially to help kids feel less anonymous. |
Dave
Citizen
Username: Dave
Post Number: 5618
Registered: 4-1998
| | Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 10:05 am: |
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Microsoft "streamlining" anything is laughable. Their software fits the definition of bloat and their strong-armed, anti-competitive business philosophy would make me want to keep them far, far away from public schools.
If you want to streamline and modernize schools, let the open source contingent in. They've essentially built the software Internet runs on and that seems to be working well. |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1897
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 9:58 pm: |
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Cynicalgirl,
First you have to let me get this out of my system--
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HAVING THOSE JOBS. WHAT'S WRONG IS THAT THEY DON'T PAY ANYONE A LIVING WAGE ANYMORE.
Ok, now I feel better. Getting back to the high school internship thing I have a few thoughts.
One is how difficult, and probably expensive, a program like must be to administrate these days. First you have to find enough businesses that will take and supervise high school kids with meaningful work.
I don't think there are so many of those anymore. Then you have to make sure the kids can get to and will be safe in those environments and you have to evaluate what's going one, etc. It just seems so logistically difficult. And parents are a lot more concerned about everything now. Back in the 1970s who thought of suing the school district?
Can you imagine what would happen now if a kid got romantically involved with a boss on a work study job or something even weirder? I'd think you'd need at least one full time person to run it and maybe more. And maybe I'm way off base with this, but those are the obstacles that come to my mind.
It's still a good idea.
They have a program like that where I work with a high school in the city and I think the kids get a lot out of it. They pair each high school student with an employee and they also do outside activities with them (I think maybe the kids only work in the office during the summer) and, I guess, mentor them in the middle class mentality--although it is never phrased like that.
Since I no longer work in the city, I'm out of touch with how it's running these days, but I knew several employees that were deeply involved and really going to great lengths to help the kids and keeping in touch with them after they graduated from the program.
I do think all kids should experience the "joy" of working in the service industry. Sometimes when my kid refuses to clean his room, I fantasize his reaction to a double shift at Micky'D's.
I read an article a while back saying that fast food restaurants in affluent communities were having a hard time attracting high school employees because the rich kids did not want to do those kind of jobs anymore and did not feel that minimum wage was going to make a dent in their college costs anyway.
I guess those are the kids that run off to build houses in the rain forest so they can put it on their college applications. So, for the affluent, working in fast food, or typing in a bank is no longer perceived as the step up to the real work as it once was. I'm not sure how college admissions officers compare those kinds of experiences, though. |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1211
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 18, 2005 - 6:07 am: |
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The program you describe sounds very cool. And, given that I believe that many middle and upper class folk get ahead not so much through smarts as through connections, I'm all for anything that provides the less endowed with connections. Sounds almost Big Brother/Big Sister-ish what you describe. Cool!
Boy, do I agree that there's nothing wrong with those jobs. Don't wish to get into the other angle. I really do believe now, and did believe then (cuz my Depression era father drummed it into me) that all work has dignity and a job worth doing is a job worth doing well -- you do learn things from any kind of work (if only that you need more training/college to get something better). Dad had a little, but he absolutely believed in jobs v allowence and similar. I think we do a disservice to kids by handling them too much. Guess that's why I question the amount of aimless hanging about that I see on the streets. Some is good and necessary, but I always had homework, parttime job to get to.
Just for humor, given your note about harrassment: as a freshman in college with a work/study job, I worked in the local school district office fulltime in the summer. Worked primarily for the AV supervisor (multimedia now?). He was fond of showing me his zipper as I prescreened and wrote synopses of free films from industry. Nothing too much, and I learned to handle "difficult" bosses. Yeah, I guess nowadays mom 'n dad would have turned it into something. At the time, I learned valuable lessons in looking out for myself without losing my job.
The seeds of cynicism ... ! |
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