Category Archives: education
“A Question of Power”—Of Accountability and Teaching by Numbers
Almost three years ago (March 12, 2011, at OpEdNews), I posted the piece below and then adapted it as a section of Ignoring Poverty in the U.S. (IAP, 2012; see Chapter Five: The Teaching Profession as a Service Industry). Below I am posting the draft version from Ignoring (with a few added hyperlinks), and feel that the key point about the misuse of accountability—drawing on a scene from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man—highlights how teaching is an invisible profession. If not the whole piece, please consider my examination of the scene between the novel’s narrator and Kimbro below.
“A Question of Power”—Of Accountability and Teaching by Numbers[i]
The speaker in Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck” confronts the contrast between land and sea—”the sea is another story/ the sea is not a question of power”—leaving the clear message that our world is “a question of power.” Over the past thirty years, the education reform debate and the rising calls for education reform have exposed themselves as a question of power. The education reform debate is a mask for the powerful to maintain their power at the expense of marginalized groups, primarily people trapped in poverty. The first three years of the Obama administration have evolved into intense clashes about policy and commitments in the field of education, exposing that the education reform debate is about more than our schools; it is a question of power. Unless the sleeping giant—the voice of educators—is awakened, the power will remain in the hands of the inexpert.
As many ignored or marginalized the rallies in Wisconsin about teachers’ rights and the role of unions in our public education system, a role that is not nearly as unified as the public believes since many states are non-union (Larkin, 2011), the corporate and political elite continued to speak from positions of celebrity and authority that lack expertise and fly above the accountability that they champion:
“Well, it’s a dereliction of duty on behalf of the Democrat state senators in Wisconsin,” Bachmann said. “There was an election in 2010. The people spoke clearly in Wisconsin. They elected a new senator, Ron Johnson to replace Russ Feingold, a new governor, Scott Walker. And then they elected Republicans to run both the House and the Senate. This was a change election in Wisconsin. People wanted to get their fiscal house in order. That’s exactly what Gov. Walker and the House and Senate are trying to do, and now the Democrats are trying to thwart the will of the people by leaving the state? This is outrageous. And, plus, we have the president of the United States also weighing in with his campaign organization busing 25,000 protesters into Madison? It’s outrageous.” (Poor, 2011)
During the rising calls for bureaucratic education reform, revamping teacher evaluations and pay, and the Wisconsin teacher protests, former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings (2011) weighed in about reauthorizing NCLB: “However, any new law must be a step toward stronger, more precise accountability.” And her audacity here is even bolder than what the new reformers have been perpetuating through film and popular media.
During President George W. Bush’s tenure, NCLB was a corner stone of his agenda, and when then-Secretary Spellings announced that test scores were proving NCLB a success, Gerald Bracey and Stephen Krashen(2006) exposed one of two possible problems with the data. Spellings either did not understand basic statistics or was misleading for political gain. Krashen detailed the deception or ineptitude by showing that the gain Spellings noted did occur from 1999 to 2005, a change of seven points. But he also revealed that the scores rose as follows: 1999 = 212; 2000 = 213; 2002 = 219; 2003 = 218; 2005 = 219. The jump Spellings used to promote NCLB and Reading First occurred from 2000 to 2002, before the implementation of Reading First. Krashen notes even more problems with claiming success for NCLB and Reading First, including:
Bracey (2006) also notes that it is very unlikely that many Reading First children were included in the NAEP assessments in 2004 (and even 2005). NAEP is given to nine year olds, but RF is directed at grade three and lower. Many RF programs did not begin until late in 2003; in fact, Bracey notes that the application package for RF was not available until April, 2002.
And for this, how was Spellings held accountable? Not at all, as the contradiction and misinformation were primarily ignored by the mainstream media.
And herein lies the problem with the accountability demands coming from the new reformers and not being challenged by the media or the public. The premise that our schools are failing is a distortion, especially when based on further misuse of data such as international comparisons (Riddile, 2010), but the claim that education is failing because of “bad” teachers and powerful teachers’ unions is more disturbing since no one ever offers any evidence, even manipulated evidence, to show that the most pressing education reform needed is teacher quality and disbanding unions. In fact, the entire course of the current accountability era has been destined to fail because the reforms are never couched in clearly defined problems. Instead, solutions are driven by ideology and cultural myths.
Calls for higher standards and greater accountability suggest that educational failure grows from a lack of standards and accountability—but where is the evidence those are the sources? Calls for changing teacher pay scales and implementing merit pay suggest that current pay scales and a lack of a merit pay system are somehow causing educational failures—but where is the evidence those are the sources? Charges against union influence and claimed protection of “bad” teachers also suggest that unionization of teachers has caused educational failure—but where is the evidence those are the sources?
The truth is that the new reformers are attacking teachers and unions because this is a question of power—maintaining power with the corporate and political elite at the expense of the ever-widening gap between them and the swelling workforce that is losing ground in wages and rights (Noah, 2010). De-professionalized teachers stripped of the collective bargaining are the path to a cheap and compliant workforce, paralleling the allure of Teach for America (TFA) as a cheap, recycling teacher pool—an essential element in replacing the universal public education system with a corporate charter school and privatized education system. From the perspective of the new reformers’ corporate lens for education, there is money to be made, of course, but better yet, the corporate takeover of education helps solidify the use of schools to generate compliant and minimally skilled workers.
In Ralph Ellison’s (1952) Invisible Man, the unnamed main character finds himself in a hellish nightmare after being kicked out of college and sent on a cruel quest for work in New York. He then turns to a paint manufacturing plant for employment:
KEEP AMERICA PURE
WITH
LIBERTY PAINTS. (p. 196)
The exchange between the main character and his supervisor, Kimbro, when the main character is first learning his job is important at this moment in the history of U.S. public education and the rising tide against unions:
“Now get this straight,” Kimbro said gruffily. “This is a busy department and I don’t have time to repeat things. You have to follow instructions and you’re going to do things you don’t understand, so get your orders the first time and get them right! I won’t have time to stop and explain everything. You have to catch on by doing exactly what I tell you. You got that?” (p. 199)
What follows is the main character being told by Kimbro that Liberty Paints’ prize item, white paint, requires ten drops of black. The process makes no sense on many levels to the main character, but he is chastised for questioning doing his job as told: “‘That’s it. That’s all you have to do,’ [Kimbro] said. ‘Never mind how it looks. That’s my worry. You just do what you’re told and don’t try to think about it'” (p. 200).
The scenes that follow include the main character being reprimanded for a decision although the compared paint samples look identical—the only difference being one is the result of his choice and the other is the work of the supervisor. (Later, Ellison examines the role of unions at the plant, also sections valuable to the debates today.) But here, I want to emphasize that this scene from Invisible Man is little different from the accountability dynamic begun in the early 1980s. For nearly three decades, teachers have been mandated to implement standards and to prepare students for tests that those teachers did not create and often do not endorse. Like the main character in Invisible Man, they are told daily, “’You just do what you’re told and don’t try to think about it’” (Ellison, 1952, p. 200).
And like the main character above, they are now being held accountable for the results—disregarding the power structure that mandates the standards and the tests, disregarding the weight of evidence that shows test scores are more strongly aligned with poverty than teacher or school quality. The question of power in the U.S. is that voice, thus power, comes from wealth and status. As I considered earlier, would anyone listen to Bill Gates about education if he had no money? (Thomas, 2011, March 1).
At the end of his ordeal, the main character in Invisible Man has been rendered not only silent but also invisible. He hibernates and fights a covert battle with the Monopolated Light & Power company by living surrounded by 1369 lights. His story is a question of power, a struggle to bring the truth to light. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, teachers, educators, scholars, and everyone concerned about democracy and freedom must reject the urge to hibernate and wage silent battles. Instead, voices must be raised against the powerful who have now set their sights on teachers, schools, students, and ultimately the majority of us standing on the other side of the widening gap between the haves (who have their voices amplified) and the have nots (who are silenced, invisible).
The focus on teacher quality is a political struggle over power, one that benefits the corporate and political elite as long as the public remains blind to social inequity and poverty.
References
Ellison, R. (1952). Invisible man. 30th anniversary ed. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Krashen, S. (2006, October 2). Did Reading First work? The Pulse. Retrieved from http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/krashen_reading_first.pdf
Larkin, J. (2011, February 18). 14 Democratic senators flee Wisconsin, teachers strike for second day in a row. Ballot News. Retrieved 27 June 2011 from http://ballotnews.org/2011/02/18/14-democratic-senators-flee-wisconsin-teachers-strike-for-second-day-in-a-row/
Noah, T. (2010, September 3). The United States of inequality. Slate. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/id/2266025/entry/2266026
Poor, J. (2011, February 18). Michele Bachmann weighs in on Wisconsin teacher sick-out strike: ‘It’s a dereliction of duty.’ The Daily Caller. Retrieved 27 June 2011 from http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/18/michele-bachmann-weighs-in-on-wisconsin-teacher-sick-out-strike-its-a-dereliction-of-duty/
Riddile, M. (2010, December 15). PISA: It’s poverty not stupid. The Principal Difference [Web log]. Retrieved from http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2010/12/pisa_its_poverty_not_stupid_1.html
Spellings, M. (2011, February 22). It’s an outrage. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-spellings/its-an-outrage_b_826525.html
Thomas, P. L. (2011, March 1). Ironic lessons in education reform from Bill Gates. OpEdNews.com. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ironic-Lessons-in-Educatio-by-Paul-Thomas-110301-979.htm. Reposted at The Answer Sheet, March 3, 2011, The Bill Gates problem in school reform
[i] —–. (2011, March 13). “A question of power”: Of accountability and teaching by numbers. OpEdNews.com. http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Question-of-Power–Of-by-Paul-Thomas-110311-481.html
An Open Letter to K-12 Teachers: A Call for Solidarity
In the U.S., “solidarity” and “community” are very difficult concepts. Having lived my entire life in the rural South, I’d argue “solidarity” and “community” are nearly foreign concepts here—a very painful claim to make.
But the South is an important phenomenon to examine in order to come to some understanding of what it means to be a K-12 teacher in U.S. public schools. The rural South includes mostly workers, we live and live among visible poverty, and we are nothing if not the embodiment of “community.” Yet, Southerns are prone to bashing people in poverty—railing against welfare and the lazy poor—and reject unions with a self-loathing glee that is hard to understand.
These self-defeating qualities among my South remind me of the self-defeating qualities within my profession, teaching. [And for the record, I love few things more and more deeply than the field of teaching and my South—and about few things do I get more angry than teaching and my South. As with family, we often walk a thin line between passion and anger in matters of the heart.]
And I believe we are now at a point when K-12 teachers in the U.S. must examine who they are and how solidarity is essential if universal public education is ever to achieve its purpose as an essential pillar of democracy among free people.
So it is there that I begin this open letter to K-12 teachers as a call for solidarity.
My career as a teacher is grounded in 18 years teaching public school English in the rural South as that has been informed by my dissertation work, writing a biography of English educator Lou LaBrant. Three aspects of her career serve me well in this open letter:
- Much of LaBrant’s early scholarly work focused on the importance of free reading and libraries (work she conducted and published throughout the first half of the twentieth century); as well, she published much of this work with a librarian, Frieda Heller, modeling, I think, a powerful message about teacher scholarship, teacher agency, and who constitutes “teachers” within the field.
- In 1932, LaBrant was offered and accepted a position at the University School newly opening at the Ohio State University. One of her first acts once hired was to lobby with the school that English was not a separate course (the position for which she was hired), but that literacy (reading and writing) were elements essential among all disciplines. Even at an experimental school, LaBrant was an outlier voice of critical re-imagining how we do school.
- LaBrant was notoriously hard on other teachers; many who knew LaBrant believed that the phrase that best captured her was “She didn’t suffer fools.” Once when she was giving a talk, a teacher in the audience stood to ask just how teachers were supposed to know and do all that LaBrant demanded (and, yes, LaBrant demanded). Without missing a beat, LaBrant told the teacher if she didn’t know how, then she should quit, learn how, and then come back to teaching.
It is at this last example that I find myself torn when I advocate in public writing for both public education and public school teachers. And that is why I write this open letter.
Public advocacy for schools and teachers is a lightning rod for angry responses; what is interesting is that the venom I often receive comes from a wide spectrum of stakeholders in public education, including K-12 teachers.
Just as one current example, my stances on Common Core and high-stakes testing (I reject both entirely) are routinely challenged by K-12 teachers—not just reformers and school-bashers.
K-12 teachers and advocates for those teachers and public schools face, then, a tremendous number of tensions, and I believe our solution to those tensions rests on forming a level of solidarity teachers have yet to achieve.
In order to create that solidarity, we must confront the tensions before us:
- The greatest tension facing a K-12 teacher is the call: “first, do no harm.” We must always be advocates for each child in our care, each child in our schools, each child in our community, each child in our state, and each child on this planet. This is a massive weight, one that makes our work monumental.
- Another tension is the need to admit that K-12 teaching, historically and currently, is not a profession. K-12 teachers are bureaucratic employees. As hard as this fact is to face, the greater tension lies in making the case that K-12 teaching should be a profession. K-12 teacher have little autonomy and muted voices; further, K-12 teachers work under the thumb of external accountability for implementing the mandates not of their design and for outcomes beyond their control. That is not the context of a profession.
- As is the case within all fields of work, that there exists a wide range of competencies among teachers is a burdensome tension. This tension confronts K-12 teachers with the need to become good stewards of their own field, even when that field is corrupted by non-expert bureaucracy.
- Another incredibly complicated tension is what K-12 teacher need to admit about public education: Historically and currently public education has failed and is failing, but not in the ways often expressed by political leaders, the media, and the public. This tension, however, is ripe with possibility since the fact that schools have not yet succeeded and currently do not succeed must be placed at the feet of that bureaucracy and then K-12 teachers must claim their own table for demanding and enacting the reform we have yet to address.
- Finally, K-12 teaching is criticized and portrayed as if the field is far more unified that it is, a rarely identified tension. Teaching in a unionized state is far different than teaching in the mostly right-to-work South. Teaching in a rural school is distinct from teaching in an urban school. Ironically, however, one thing most K-12 teachers share is that our work is incredibly isolated as we spend most of our working day the sole teacher behind our closed doors among our students. K-12 teaching is a frantic exercise that pushes us deeper and deeper into that isolation, in fact.
Yes, much is being done to K-12 teachers—baseless teacher evaluation and merit pay schemes as well as increased and misguided accountability mandates simultaneous with the dismantling of teachers unions and job security.
And that, I suppose, is the great tension: How do K-12 teachers achieve the autonomy and professionalism they deserve in positions so bereft of power?
K-12 teachers are not being served well by political leadership, the media, professional organizations, or unions. While all of these entities should be within the power of teachers to change, we are faced with growing evidence that will not happen.
This means K-12 teachers need solidarity. Solidarity to become the profession we have been denied so far. Solidarity among teachers and all workers to create the conditions of working that all people deserve in a free society.
Solidarity is a unified voice, but not a singular mind.
Solidarity is taking ownership of being good stewards of the field we imagine even before it comes to fruition—possibly because we must imagine before it can come to fruition.
Solidarity is teacher-led modeling of what it means to be a professional teacher and a scholar-teacher, and not merely a bureaucratic employee.
Solidarity is teacher-led praise and criticism of teaching and schooling, that is unlike what politicians, the media, and the public have offered.
K-12 teachers, among whom I align myself, can we begin the process of solidarity around the pursuit of teaching as a profession and of public education as a democratic essential?
Can we begin the process of teacher solidarity as a beacon for the solidarity of all workers within the larger pursuit of human dignity, human agency, and human autonomy?
As we turn the page to 2014, I will remain a voice calling for the actions needed for this solidarity, and I’d be honored to have you all there with me.
Gary Rubinstein on TFA and CC: Plus Predictions for 2014 and 2024!
A Reminder: “The Children Do Notice”
Most of us who teach are now in a moment of pause, between semesters, between classes. Although we are mid-academic year, we are facing a new calendar year, traditionally a time to reflect, recommit, and redirect.
I offer below a repost of a piece from 2011, something I think that is enduring and important—a lesson from a student of a former student of mine, now a teacher.
I spent the first eighteen years of my career as an educator, teaching high school English at the high school I attended in my home town. There, I was fortunate to teach hundreds and hundreds of wonderful young people who made my life richer and fueled my desire to be the best teacher I could be.
The last thirteen years have been devoted to teacher education. I now have about three dozen young English teachers who have come through my courses and field experiences, creating for me a different kind of pride in them and my work.
All of these students I love. I miss them dearly, and recall them fondly. Facebook has been a wonderful opportunity to reconnect, although virtually, with a few hundred students. Yes, I “friend” students and former students—because I have told all of my teachers-to-be that they should ignore the misguided advice often given to young teachers: “Don’t be friends with your students.”
I have yet to understand what characteristics of friendship we should deny the children in our care. . .
Because of my life and profession as an educator, and because of the wonderful students and teachers who have been in my classes, I admit that I am quick to bristle at the current criticism and misinformation about teachers and the entire profession of teaching.
Two-plus years ago, I received a notice in my gmail account that a former student, Stephanie Johnson, who now teachers in DC had tagged me in a comment on Facebook, and this is what she wrote:
Today, I got a beautiful reminder from a student about why I’ve chosen this profession. The student (an 8th grade male student with special needs) planned and hosted a reception to honor five staff members who have had a positive impact on his life. He decided he wanted to do it, he got help from the necessary people to make it happen, and he hosted a beautiful program to honor them. I’ve been to events planned by adults that weren’t of this caliber. It was amazing. And it led me to say this to my teacher friends…In this time when teachers are disrespected by those that make the decisions about our profession AND those completely outside of it, it’s important to remember that we do this for CHILDREN. To be a positive part of CHILDREN’S lives. To empower and nurture CHILDREN. Though our efforts go unnoticed and are under-appreciated by the powers that be, the CHILDREN do notice. They notice when you go out of your way to support and care for them. They notice when you recognize the gifts they have that others can’t (or won’t) see. They notice that you are there every day, longer than you should be. They notice. And they appreciate you. So, in this stressful end of the year time with testing, IEPs, etc., I hope you’ll continue to stay positive and hopeful. I hope you’ll continue doing everything that you’ve always done that has made you the wonderful teacher (social worker, administrator) that you are. Enjoy your last few weeks with your students.
Peace.
Every time a self-appointed education reformer claims she is putting children first, think about these words above.
Every time a self-appointed education reformer argues that education has too many bad teachers, think about these words above.
Every time a self-appointed education reformer accuses teachers of being satisfied with the status quo, think about these words above.
Every time a self-appointed education reformer says we give too many tests and then calls for more tests, think about these words above.
“The CHILDREN do notice”. . .
They notice adult hypocrisy, they notice our wars, they notice that many, too many, people have too little in the richest country in the world. . .
But most of all, they notice the kindness and genuine love of that adult whose classroom they enter for the first time purely by chance. They notice that we have chosen to be teachers because we expect to love them, we expect them to be all that they imagine they can be.
I can only paraphrase Stephanie, “Enjoy your time with your students.”
And despite all the things that make us question being teachers, be thankful that come the next school year, there will be more students to empower and nurture.
To love.
* Reposted from Daily Kos (May 9, 2011).
AlterNet 2013
While I am often critical of mainstream media’s contributions to the education reform debate, I want to pause at the end of 2013 and point you to my pieces posted at AlterNet, in part to ask that you visit AlterNet often and acknowledge the wonderful work done their in terms of education.
I hope as well you have found or will find my work there has contributed positively to the cause:
Why Charter Schools Are Foolish Investments for States Facing Economic Challenges
Posted on: Dec 18, 2013, Source: The State
South Carolina’s children deserve data-based and lean school reform policy, and not advocacy-based experiments.
Learning and Teaching in Scarcity: How High-Stakes ‘Accountability’ Cultivates Failure
Posted on: Nov 8, 2013, Source: AlterNet
In-school-only reforms will never be the solution for children in high-poverty schools.
The Central Issue at the Heart of America’s Growing Education Gap
Posted on: Oct 3, 2013, Source: AlterNet
It’s time for some new thinking about how to address the persistent inequalities that plague our education system.
Posted on: Sep 17, 2013, Source: AlterNet
Forget low test scores, says one of the nation’s foremost education experts in her new book. The privatizers are the real threat to America’s schools.
Whatever Happened to Scientifically Based Research in Education Policy?
Posted on: Sep 12, 2013, Source: AlterNet
No Child Left Behind calls for scientifically based research. But what if that research calls for repealing No Child Left Behind?
The Similarities Between the Charter School Movement and the War on Drugs
Posted on: May 20, 2013, Source: TruthOut.org
How both are creating an underclass, significantly among African American males.
The Rise of the Dogmatic Scholar
Posted on: Apr 4, 2013, Source: AlterNet
Free market think-tanks pay off scholars who are now increasingly found in universities.
Corporations Are Behind The Common Core State Standards — And That’s Why They’ll Never Work
Posted on: Mar 18, 2013, Source: AlterNet
Why do we keep enforcing more and more standards and testing that educators don’t trust?
Why Sending Your Child to a Charter School Hurts Other Children
Posted on: Mar 6, 2013, Source: AlterNet
Parents should fight for quality education for all, not just their own kids.
Schools Can’t Do It Alone: Why ‘Doubly Disadvantaged’ Kids Continue to Struggle Academically
Posted on: Jan 30, 2013, Source: AlterNet
A report on childhood poverty proves once again that no single measure can cure poverty’s ills.
The Answer Sheet: The invisibility of teachers
The Answer Sheet: The invisibility of teachers
Spellings Doubles-Down on “Incredibly Complicated” High-Stakes Testing
Truthout: Why Charter Schools Are Foolish Investments for States Facing Economic Challenges
Top Posts of 2013, and Thank You
This year, 2013, is when I took the plunge and began blogging at my own site—despite trepidation about “who was I..” and “who would bother….”
Because of the kindness of my fellow educators, bloggers, and Twitter-friends, I am very pleased with how many read and share my work. It is something I value as someone driven to write.
I am now tiptoeing into another commitment that started this month, but will blur into 2014—another writer urge, and thus a renewed anxiety. I am hopeful it can be even partially as fulfilling as committing to this blog.
And thus, thank you, thank you all deeply …
As a teacher and university academic/scholar perched among those who still expect academics/scholars to prepare peer-reviewed articles for journals almost no one will read and to take a nonpolitical pose, I have offered and will continue to offer this blog as an argument that our public work, our open-access work, our political voices are what truly matters most.
And thus, my top posts of 2013, those with 1000 views or more:
