Some comments on Spring

Spring reveals the fact that most times, educational policy is determined by interest groups, and not all interest groups are operating from any kind of informed educational background. Instead, the values and agenda of the interest groups tend to sway the politicians making the policy from the President of the United States down to the school board member in a small community. Unfortunately, politicians are most often concerned with votes, not kids, so they make decisions to please their constituents and shore up votes rather than decisions that will truly benefit schools or children.
So if we know interest groups will force action, the question doesn’t become whether or not to include them or consider them. The question becomes which focus groups do we want at the table. If we support local control of schools, citizens can enjoy a greater degree of participation. Local interest groups are easier to access, so one can appeal to them, understand them, and work with them. Also, at the local level, elections are not as much of a motivating factor. At a national level, where a president has to re-run for office and only has a total of eight years to enact change in a variety of sectors of society, he/she does not have enough time to work through education, global economic issues, military decisions, etc. Rather, as Reagan and Bush have demonstrated, most of the educational change to occur is delegated to a secretary or other appointee the public hasn’t voted into office, or the interest group with whom they align. The actual political leader just uses the educational platform developed by others to campaign as the “Education President.” With the number of “Education Presidents” we have had in the past fifty years, it is amazing we are not the world expert on education.
If schools could force more local control, communities could feel more empowered in structuring their schools, its curricula, and its policies. They would be able to practice more effective representative democracy because the people making the policy decisions are actually the people they elected. This, in turn, would model democracy for their children and help advance the goal of creating an educated citizenry through education. The Boards of Education, hopefully, would have more access to specific, district-based educational needs and challenges and design more targeted reform to improve conditions and performance. These changes could occur faster and be more tailored and monitored.
One challenge to local control is that elite citizens would control the decision-making, and the underdogs may not have adequate representation. Delaware City Schools has seen this phenomenon. I held a focus group there to discuss community relations, and found that the Board as well as the Superintendent tends to rely on the same voices, the “Old Guard,” when making choices. They recognized the economically disadvantaged were not having the same experience in their schools and they realized that situation would cause them problems on the state report card and other performance analyses. That pressure to perform motivated them to at least look at how they could close the achievement gap, but even then, the participants in my focus group indicated that the “disadvantaged voice” was not invited to the table to actually be part of the solution. They said the “Old Guard” didn’t even consider that their voice would be relevant.
So although local control of schools is attractive from a democratic point of view, and attractive if one is truly looking to build social capital in its individual citizens, local control can prevent a more global view of education, reduce willingness to embrace multiculturalism, and actually promote anti-American values in some communities. Local control can actually stifle change and prevent access to information that does not fit into the commonly held views of the community. We saw this a bit when we did our focus group in Kettering, where the consensus of the group was that Kettering Schools produces Ketteringites, indoctrinated into the values and practices of the community. Perhaps that helps students see a more realistic view of their communities and prepares them to actively participate because they know the politics and the pressures faced by public officials.
Faced with the possibility of education narrowing the minds of students instead of expanding their minds, many would say nationalization is the way to go because more voices will be heard. However, politicians, who need votes to even enter into office, can prevent true collaborative problem solving by caving in to the demands of the loudest interest group that holds the greatest number of votes. They can also succumb to their frequently inflated egos and employ the attitude that they have the best plan to save the disadvantaged from themselves. Either way, the policy ends up reflecting the values and culture of America’s upper middle class. Most often, the interest groups pushing the concerns of the disadvantaged are made up of middle class voices working furiously to raise the disadvantaged up far enough to enter the middle class rat race.
Finally, a third option, and the one that is used today is state control. However, in our current educational power structure, the states are held hostage by the federal initiatives. States may understand their particular educational needs, but they are not given the real power to carry out their policies because the federal government threatens to yank funding if states do not adhere to their policies. So our current system is perhaps the worst because the players can blame each other for education’s problems.
The state can complain that the federal government mandates impossible programs and then doesn’t fund them. They cannot possibly do well because they have to redirect their finances so they are compliant. The local schools may know what is best for their students, but they point to the state standards and testing procedures as their reasons for making poor choices or unpopular ones. The federal leaders complain that the family is to blame (which adds fuel to the Conservative Christian interest groups’ agendas) and the teachers and the local district bureaucracies. The different levels of leadership spend so much time pointing fingers at each other, they spend little time actually problem solving collaboratively.
So what is the solution? If I knew that, I would be a very rich woman. What I am learning, however, is education is much too complicated to point at one leader as good and one leader as bad. The bottom line is we all care about education, even if some of us are more focused on its ability to provide credentials, or its ability to sustain democracy, or its ability to generate a workforce. The educational problems will not be solved as long as education is part of the public good, because it will be a victim to the constant tension between the market and democracy, the Republicans and the Democrats, the religious and the secular.
I don’t think, however, a solution is possible because education is a process and its purpose and practice ebbs and flows with the tide of our own changing culture. In a perfect world, I would like to see some realistic, well informed national standards about what makes a person literate. I would like to see what processes are considered necessary by all interest groups for a democratic citizen. I would also like to see a national policy somehow enforcing the right for all children to attend school and learn the basic skills needed to be an American. The states can determine how to make their students good workers. They are the ones that know what industry their state has and what its workforce needs are. If the state is the one investing in its educational system, it should be able to prepare a workforce that will benefit its own industry so it keeps the students in the state. I also think the federal government should not punish states and their schools by taking away their funding. Perhaps they should punish the businesses in the state when a state fails to produce students.
Forcing businesses to pay for the failures of the school could help them stop simply criticizing, and start actually problem-solving. Currently, they discuss what needs to be done, but do not feel any kind of responsibility to be an active part of the solutions they propose. If people want a voice at the table, that voice should be granted only if they accept the responsibility to take an active role in carrying out their suggestions. Imagine what a collaborative system we could set up if it was designed to force meaningful and long term collaboration between business and school and government.

some thoughts on education and policy

I am beginning to see a true irony in the discussions of education, reform, politics and finance. From the beginning of formalized schooling, the cited purpose for education was to perpetuate the democracy through knowledgeable students. Horace Mann fought for publicly supported schooling because a well educated populace keeps property values high, and because personal wealth is often dependent on the wealth of the community. The more recent argument that schools should “produce” workers is attractive to employers, but has not held up in our courts as a primary purpose. As recently as 2001, New York’s Justice DeGrasse wrote that a good education “consists of the foundational skills that students need to become productive citizens capable of civic engagement and sustaining competitive employment.” The irony is that most venture capitalists would love to invest in something that is sure to yield returns. We know that schooling yields returns, but the modern idea of humans as capital worth an investment or future workers waiting to be produced hasn’t attracted companies to pony up the investment.
I am also saddened to note that not many educational theorists concerned with policy so far have directly focused on what is good for our children or the value of our children as an end in itself. Other countries value their children and offer policies that illustrate their commitment to their future generations. For example, Scandinavian countries offer a mother a full year off with her current pay when she gives birth because they believe positive early nutritional and psychological development in children is a good investment. They also respect teachers and the jobs they do. Teachers there spend about 60% of their day with students. The other 40% is spent collaborating, designing action research, and reading on current pedagogical theory so they can stay sharp. Is it any surprise that Finland’s educational system continues to rank at the top worldwide? You get what you pay for. Our companies spend millions of dollars yearly to train their employees. They could reduce that line item in the budget if they invested more in the early training of employees by investing in schools.
The focus of education seems to be on measuring the accountability of the system rather than being intuitive about what kinds of services kids need. Standardized tests that measure specific facts and figures, or ask students to regurgitate a single set of facts merely test whether the school introduced those facts and concepts. The tests are not centered on the child’s ability to be a good citizen or a productive worker; they are measuring the actions of the system.
Furthermore, the reliance on those tests to define the quality of a school means schools spend their resources jamming the set of facts that will appear on the test into the brains of their students. Every child is an individual with separate talents, dreams, and abilities, but the United States offers only one definition of success, which is education in a typical college prep high school and achieving on standardized exams. We miss the opportunity to help shape truly brilliant thinkers and future politically active citizens with the ability to problem-solve and think creatively. Other countries offer nationalized tests, but they offer alternatives to students who don’t make the grade. They also have curricula focused on much less content and many more processes.
The United States is so worried about the notion of equality, but they have focused on the wrong type of equality. Vouchers and grants and other types of funding meant to help close the gap between wealthy and poor districts miss the mark. A part of me believes we all have a responsibility to our children because they are Americans and our country’s future depends on their success. On the other hand, I understand the individualistic view that I have my own children to care for and pay for, and I can’t afford to take care of other people’s children as well. I also understand the capitalistic undercurrent that informs Americans; namely, hard work yields success and wealth. Capitalistic thinkers have historically considered unsuccessful or poor people as lazy or even morally deficient. Paying for their children to attend school might be seen as excusing them. The disappearance of community schools has exaggerated the gap between these two views and pushed many people who may have initially been more willing to help pay for education to the other side of the fence. Without community schools, the districts are asking citizens to think very large. They are not paying for the children of a family they have known and they live near. They are paying for kids they have never met and to whom they have no sense of obligation.
Our society is also very different today. We do not have a front porch culture anymore where neighbors know each other. Instead, we have many more transient homeowners who never venture off their private backyard decks. The sense of community is declining and with that, the sense of an obligation to society as a whole declines. The recent Wall Street scandals underscores this sense of “me as most important” that many Americans feel. The stock market supports the entire country; the economies of the entire world depend on it, but American executives cheated and lied and pocketed billions of dollars of profit without a conscience. And these are the winners, the Americans with good educational pedigrees and lots of wealth. That kind of national sense of morality does not bode well for a public system of education or health for that matter.
Amy Gutman’s idea of a democratic threshold seems more realistic in these times because we could probably make an argument no one could refute for basic education for an enlightened citizenship. The issue is determining the amount of money needed to educate all children to be democratic citizens. In some communities, that task is much more difficult and expensive than in others. Gutman’s idea, unfortunately, points to a bleak future for schools where the curriculum only includes reading, writing, basic math, and citizenship. Any extra activities schools want will have to be paid for by parents, property taxes, or by school fundraisers.
I fear that the future is going to look more like Southwestern City Schools. Schools are not going to be able to continue to the level of services they currently do if the funding issue isn’t settled and the funding issue will not be settled because of the power struggles. Spring notes the power struggles between employees within a district as well as the struggles between the state and districts, the community and the state and so on. Spring points out educational bureaucracies have been the scapegoats for school finance arguments since the 1950s conservative movement. Instead of saying I don’t care about kids or the next generation so I am not supporting this levy, residents can say they are not supporting the levy because the system is wasteful.
The teachers and administrators do not help the cause. They are often adversarial and distrustful. That distrust seeps into the community. If a community doesn’t trust its local school system’s officials, it will not support the school through levies or volunteerism. In order to settle the problem of school funding, school districts need to act as a unified system. Districts need to collaborate to get word out about what they are doing. Districts need to form a common mission and vision. I am somewhat perplexed by the idea that each school within a district has its own mission and vision and then the district has a mission and vision. The state offers a mission and vision as well. Shouldn’t the mission of schools be the same throughout the state? I understand differing visions because each school might approach the mission uniquely depending on their population, but shouldn’t they all be working to the same aim?
Centralization and standardization is the easy solution many people who have forgotten about the kids employ. They call for it to make sure the system offers equality to all, but they forget that each student has unique needs. A student living below the poverty level has greater needs than a student whose parents provide for him/her. Some poorer communities do not communicate the value of education to their youth. Without a buy-in that education is important, why would one want care about school? Some districts need money to help teach the positive habits and attitudes necessary for academic achievement to parents and other community members.
Spring concludes Chapter 4 with the question, “Who should control U.S. schools?” I think the answer to that question is directly related to the purpose one assigns to schools. If creating an enlightened citizen is the purpose, then the national government should share responsibility with the state government to teach children the laws and rules of democracy in the nation and the state. If the purpose of education is to produce a worker, then the local business community should have a voice in creating curriculum and assessing results. If the purpose of schools is to try to make each individual American the most enlightened person he/she can be and to help identify and nurture each individual’s gifts and talents, then the parents and the teachers should have the most say.