Strong Readers and Writers in the 21st Century

Given this week’s research focus, reading about writing, and the consensus that most theorists acknowledge the link between strong readers and strong writers, today’s blog first will contextualize pertinent literature before applying the concepts to an online think-aloud of an advertisement by ED in ’08 that appeared in a recent (July 9, 2008) edition of The New Republic.

The National Writing Project’s Because Writing Matters (2006) defines literacy as the ability to read and write, noting, “the two are best learned together” (60). But this concept is nothing new. Pioneering teacher-researcher and writing process proponent Donald Murray (1990) writes, “You can read without writing, but you can’t write without reading,” (115).

Traveling back in time 28 years, Paul A. Eschholz (1980) was writing about the reading and writing connection in the teaching of English, arguing that combining the two in a Prose Models Approach to classroom instruction would be more effective than traditional approaches, because “[i]n reading, writers see the printed word; they develop an eye – and an ear – for language, the shape and order of sentences, and the texture of paragraphs,” (21). To demonstrate his point, Eschholz looks to professional writers as his standard, “Professional writers have long acknowledged the value of reading; they know that what they read is important to how they eventually write,” (21). So, it makes sense that teachers might model what they do in the classroom based on how writing happens in the real world.

And that means teaching writing as a process, a concept that does not always mesh with the administrivia facing those in the teaching profession, where assignments must be assessed and grades must be posted every six weeks, a task often discordant with the recursive nature of writing. Sondra Perl (1990) explains the process of writing as one in which, “…we begin with what is inchoate and end with something that is tangible. In order to do so, we both discover and construct what we mean … In writing, meaning cannot be discovered the way we discover an object on an archaeological dig. In writing, meaning is crafted and constructed. It involves us in a process of coming-into-being,” (49).

Perl’s “coming-into-being” applies to much more than the writing process. It is a metaphor for change. Politically, writing process theory marks a shift in both teaching philosophy and teacher role. While it undoubtedly shifted the focus away from prescribed writing to inquiry-based writing, it also reflects a cultural transition that emphasizes the importance of the individual. Classroom philosophies needed to adapt to reflect this paradigm shift in the larger society. The political function was to present a shift in the guise of what Thomas Newkirk calls “anti-institutional bias” (xvi). Perhaps its real purpose was to effect a dumbing down of traditional writing’s focus on the higher-level critical thinking skills required for academic writing to one that still focused on literacy and expression, yet fulfilled society’s goal of producing a literate work force while minimizing the threat to its institutions. In other words, by shifting from writing based on analysis to writing based on personal experience, politicians need not worry about the masses becoming an insurgent threat to their power base. A radical idea, even considering that process writing, when implemented correctly by teachers, draws students to use critical thinking skills, something lacking in the current test-prep focused system.

Actually, one might argue that the traditional method of English instruction, where the teacher disseminates information to the students, prescribing topics for writing, also served a political function. In the beginning of the 20th century, when “[t]he effects of the social efficiency movement on classroom teaching practices in high school English courses” (Berlin 193) were beginning to be realized, many English courses were developed that ignored literature altogether, instead emphasizing high school as a place for job training where writing instruction could be restricted and used merely for “utilitarian and vocational” purposes, “without regard for the personal or political life of the student” (Berlin 194). Now, in the 20th century, our needs are much different, requiring a work force with skills beyond an 8th or even 12th grade education, levels that were sufficient for much of the 20th century’s industrialized society.

Furthermore, to change the structure of the outdated current system, one that emphasized rote learning, will not be possible without getting everyone on board, from students to parents to teachers to administrators to state and federal government. Whether educational or otherwise, change never happens without resistance, and playing the blame game is not going to solve the problem. All interested parties must work together to effect positive change. And, as Jerome Bruner writes, “[e]ducation is risky, for it fuels the sense of possibility. But a failure to equip minds with the skills for understanding and feeling and acting in the cultural world is not simply scoring a pedagogical zero. It risks creating alienation, defiance, and practical incompetence. And all of these undermine the viability of a culture,” (42-23).

Change that attempts to be implemented in the writing classroom is thwarted by the current emphasis on testing, leaving the efforts of conscientious teachers thwarted. Do teachers follow what they know to be sound pedagogy, refusing to focus on the test, or do they give in to administrative pressure? While writing process teacher-researchers like Nancie Atwell and Murray suggest teachers have students write daily, attempting many writings and choosing some for further development, mimicking the professional writer’s process, they also assert that teachers should not assess every piece of writing, advocating for portfolios that contain several student-selected writings that teachers use to assess progress when grades are due. This philosophy in the teaching of writing allows students to craft and construct meaning, as Perl says, resulting in students using higher-order thinking skills – the critical thinking skills that many of our students lack because they are not afforded the opportunity to “com[e]-into-being.”

 

But does the typical structure of the American high school allow time for discovery in writing? It can and it does. Does an already-packed curriculum that, in many cases, focuses on standardized test preparation allow for this new-age touchy-feely discovery? Sadly again, what teachers know to be good practice in the teaching of writing is being compromised by the push to teach not only artificial forms like the five paragraph essay (FPE) that tend to score well on writing tests, but also “facts” about writing, where the correct answer is one of five choices presented to students in a list.

Where outside of misguided K-12 classrooms is the FPE used? The answer is that it is not. In fact, First Year Composition (FYC) college writing instructors spend much of their time deprogramming the damage done to students in American middle and high schools.

Where in the real world do people take multiple-choice examinations in the workplace? The answer is they do not.

As a result, this begs the question, “Why are we doing this to our students?”

The most consistent response is because we need to “raise the bar” and institute “standards” to address the “education crisis” America is experiencing. Interestingly, if you look through the literature, Americans have perceived deficiencies in its educational system for the last hundred and fifty years, making myriad adjustments in order to rise to its status of economic power in the 20th century. David Brooks cites Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz’s The Race Between Education and Technology in his recent article addressing America’s education crisis, noting that education levels in the United States steadily improved between 1870 and 1950, rising far above those of its industrialized competitors. Goldin and Katz mark 1970 as the year “educational progress slowed to a crawl,” with “educational attainments stagnat[ing] completely” between 1975 and 1990 (Brooks A19).

What happened?

We are now in a situation where workers do not possess the skills necessary to fill jobs that require technical knowledge, so jobs are being shipped overseas and the gap between skilled and unskilled workers in the United States is becoming more pronounced, resulting in an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. Brooks points to a study by University of Chicago researcher James Heckman, “Schools, Skills, and Synapses,” that argues the problem of decline in American high school graduation rates seen since the late 1960s, when it reached its peak, is not a result of a lack of funding or failing schools, but a result of the deterioration of the family seen over the last 40 years.

In that time, we have seen an economic shift where, in order to achieve the ideals of the American dream, both parents must work, leaving children without a built-in support system – a mother or father at home (something single-parent families also face). With parents at work, students are left to fend for themselves, trying to make sense of life without very much guidance. Some make it, but others do not. Since 1970, we have seen a rise in television viewing and the phenomenon of television as babysitter, giving our children misguided views. The language, violence and sexuality presented on television – not to mention commercial saturation attempting to persuade viewers that they need just about everything – has become more commonplace. Juvenile problems have increased. Prisons are overcrowded. Upon returning from work, guilt-ridden parents shower their progeny with gifts instead of spending quality time with them because, frankly, they are just too tired. Instead of focusing on homework, it’s much easier to play a video game and eat processed foods without a parent present to moderate activities. This reallocation of priorities has translated into a common view, undoubtedly based on the adult’s day at work, that schoolwork should not leave school and home is for relaxing and getting away from the demands that work/school place on us. It is not uncommon in today’s high schools to hear, “I don’t do homework, because I’m at school all day long and no one is paying for me to do work at home.”

Somewhere along the way, things got screwed up. The entitlement philosophy that emerged from the Me Generation of the 1970s not only persists today, but has created multiple generations who ask what their country (and everyone else) can do for them. American society has become a victim of itself. While many attempt to play the blame game, pointing to schools as the root cause of decline in education, we would be remiss not to also consider plethora social factors that affect our students’ motivation and ability to perform – beginning in the home. That’s one of the reasons why it’s upsetting when groups such as ED in ’08, a self-described group advocating for Strong American Schools supported by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, take it upon themselves bash public education. Their full-page color advertisement appearing on the back page of The New Republic’s July 9, 2008 issue will serve as the starting point for my “dialogue with the text” (see Louise Rosenblatt’s Reader-Response Theory if you are intrigued).

The focal point for the advertisement is a young, blue-eyed female holding a pencil to paper, looking at the camera above as if she worn out, the victim of traditional education. Beneath her is large text – all caps – that reads “A NATION STILL AT RISK” in black lettering, with the exception of “STILL,” which is in yellow for emphasis. To the left of the unfortunate girl is the following: “BY 8TH GRADE, NEARLY 70% OF STUDENTS ARE BELOW PROFICIENT IN READING. MOST WILL NEVER CATCH UP.” This text is all white except for “70%” (which appears not only larger than the other text, for emphasis, but also in yellow) and “BELOW PROFICIENT” (again, in yellow). My first response is to ask the source of the information. Though my guess would be NAEP, the source is not cited. I would also like to know the scale so “proficiency” can be defined. On what test was this proficiency established? Was it multiple choice? What did the reading passages look like? Most standardized tests are biased toward upper class white people. How did socioeconomic status figure in? Race? Gender? These are all important for being able to contextualize such a statement.

Beneath “A NATION STILL AT RISK” are two statements (black text with yellow text to highlight particular sections) represented as separate paragraphs. I’ll consider these one at a time:

“TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER A NATION AT RISK WAS WRITTEN, OUR SCHOOLS ARE STILL STRUGGLING WITH A MEDIOCRE EDUCATION SYSTEM THAT CONTINUES TO FAIL OUR CHILDREN BY NOT PROVIDING THEM WITH THE SKILLS NEEDED TO SUCCEED IN THE GLOBAL WORKFORCE.” The word “still” is italicized, “mediocre education system” is in yellow, as is “continues to fail our children.” To focus on the yellow text, we have a mediocre education system that continues to fail our children. My initial reaction is that no system, especially one that attempts to educate everyone, can be 100% successful. By the same token, is our current system perfect? Absolutely not. But, as the ad implies, it does not fail all of our children. Whom does it fail? If you go back up to the 70%, then it’s failing 7 of 10 students. See the above comment regarding that. What are the skills necessary to succeed? Can all of these be learned at school, at a place a child attends for 6 hours a day, five days a week, and nine months a year? What are children doing when they are not in school, which constitutes the majority of their time? Are parents encouraging them to turn off the TV and the video games and actually practice reading? The average American student spends a minimum of 4-6 hours a day in front of a screen. Reading and writing are skills that get better only with practice. While the system may not be perfect, the support systems outside of the 30-hours of school time must support school endeavors. What is happening in school and at home in the 24 nations who are beating us in mathematics and 20 countries that are beating us in science? Are they doing it based on a six-hour school day with no follow-up beyond school hours? Do foreign students expect to be paid for their time studying after school? Do they consider non-school time “free time”, or are they studying, reading, and reinforcing what they’ve learned during the day?

“WHEN AMERICAN STUDENTS GET BEAT FOR THE BEST JOBS AVAILABLE, OUR ECONOMY SUFFERS, IMPACTING EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US.” Again, “American students get beat for the best jobs” and “impacting each and every one of us” appear in yellow text. Are all of our jobs being sent overseas because our students are not skilled? What about foreign workers who do technical work for less money than Americans will? People in the United States are still living according to industrial revolution standards, where a minimal education was sufficient to attain a middle class lifestyle. This is no longer the case. When this attitude changes, and it has to start in the home, we will see Americans attaining higher levels of education. I’m thinking to myself, “How did Ireland change its economy?” What are the standards for education in Europe? In Germany, students, depending on aptitude, are funneled into trade schools, business schools, or college prep schools when they reach their teens, providing a concentrated focus for study. In America, we lump all of our students into one class, where oftentimes teachers teach to the average student, resulting in struggling students and smart students being left behind. In America, tracking has become a bad word in education. What if we had a system similar to Germany’s? What do the Japanese do? The Chinese? While the economy impacts all of us, and we are now in a recession, the reason is not because American students are getting beat for the best jobs. That is reductionist thinking. Does the society suffer when it does not take care of all of its members? Absolutely. Any change in skill attainment will not be seen until other areas are addressed proactively in combination with reworking mass education.

The ad ends with: “STRONG AMERICAN SCHOOLS REFUSES TO ACCEPT MEDIOCRITY. WE CANNOT WAIT ANOTHER 25 YEARS TO ACT.” All black text. I couldn’t agree more. A public school product, I do not accept mediocrity, either. We’re on the same page. But I also believe that my public education was excellent. When I had the occasional teacher who was not effective, I had the wherewithal to read the texts and educate myself. My family supported my education and encouraged me to go to college. My father paid me for achieving good grades in high school (I gladly took the cash, though it wasn’t much, never telling him that I loved the challenge of school). What makes me different? My dad took a few college classes, my mom went to cosmetology school after high school. Dad worked on the line for an automobile manufacturer, mom stayed at home. We ate all of our meals together on the weekends, and we all ate dinner together each afternoon at 3:45pm (When dad arrived home, mom had the meal waiting. We said a prayer, ate, talked about our days, then read the newspaper after.) Even though he never finished college, dad always said an education was the best thing you could have in this world. While I was rebellious as a teen, like many, I always finished my work first. To this day, I work hard and then play hard. When I see some of my students lacking in motivation, I wonder how I can give them what I – and few others in my class – have. What is the difference?

At the bottom appears the following: http://www.edin08.com/ .

Works Cited

Berlin, James. “Writing Instruction in School and College English, 1890-1985. from A Short History of Writing Instruction. ed. James J. Murphy. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1990. 184-220.

Brooks, David. “The Biggest Issue.” The New York Times. 29 July 2008. A19.

Bruner, Jerome. The Culture of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Eschholz, Paul A. “The Prose Models Approach: Using Products in the Process.” Eight Approaches to Teaching Composition. Eds. Timothy R. Donovan and Ben W. McClelland. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1980. 21-36.

Murray, Donald. “Teaching the Other Self: The Writer’s First Reader.” To Compose: Teaching Writing in High School and College, Second Edition. Ed. Thomas Newkirk. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1990. 113-123.

National Writing Project and Carl Nagin. Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Our Schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006.

Newkirk, Thomas. To Compose: Teaching Writing in High School and College, Second Edition. Ed. Thomas Newkirk. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1990.

Perl, Sondra. “Understanding Composing.” To Compose: Teaching Writing in High School and College, Second Edition. Ed. Thomas Newkirk. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1990. 43 – 51.

Education in Urban vs. Suburban Schools: Comparing Apples and Oranges?

In response to postings addressing education in urban schools, I received an email questioning the position I had taken. Essentially, the respondant thought the posts served to denigrate the education that students receive in urban public schools. Undoubtedly, statistics support that students in many urban schools perform more poorly compared to those in suburban schools, but it is the myriad reasons for underperformance that must be considered.

Matthew Yglesias writes that measuring the performance of urban and suburban students is akin to comparing apples and oranges. In his article, he argues that instead of using data comparing school systems, we should compare student performance based on socio-economic factors given that urban school districts “contain a higher-than-average number of poor kids, and poor kids tend to do worse than middle class kids” on standardized tests, resulting in low test scores for many big city schools. Similarly, the blog Openeducation.net, edited by Tom Hanson, provides a detailed analysis of Yglesias’s article, asserting that data can be skewed (“statistics versus facts”), maintaining that “urban schools are deserving of far more credit that they receive.”

Yglesias and Hanson make compelling arguments, though they do not go far enough. For years, research has indicated that socioeconomics are a significant factor in educating. Cultural Psychologist Jerome Bruner, in The Culture of Education, explores “the impact of poverty, racism, and alienation on the mental life and growth of [children],” (xiii) explaining that “effective education is always in jeopardy either in the culture at large or with constituencies more dedicated to maintaining a status quo than to fostering flexibility,” (15).

Yes, facts reveal a disparity in student performance based on class, but we need to ask ourselves not only why this is the case (there is a political function for maintaining an underclass, as I’ve addressed before), but also why the situation is allowed to continue when there are current school models that demonstrate success with working class and poor students. The obvious reason here is financial — it costs money to implement and it is evident that the federal government would rather mandate (NCLB) than fund solutions. In “Fostering Educational Resilience in Inner-City Schools,” (1997) a study by Margaret C. Wang, Geneva D. Haertel, and Herbert J. Walberg concludes that any reasonable solution for inner-city schools should “implement[] an inclusive approach to respond to student diversity … and family-school-community partnerships.” Bruner agrees with such an approach, noting that “…the school can never be considered as culturally ‘free standing.’ What it teaches, what modes of thought and what ’speech registers’ it actually cultivates in its pupils, cannot be isolated from how the school is situated in the lives and culture of its students,” (28).

Ruby K. Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty identifies conceptual differences and perceptions of those in poverty versus the middle class versus the wealthy, writing that “[a]ny community or organization that sets out to address poverty, education, health care, justice, or community sustainability must acknowledge that it seeks change: change in the individual’s behavior, change in community approaches, and/or change in political/economic structures,” (168-169). And change is always risky because of the unknowns associated with it. Likewise, as Bruner points out, “Education is risky, for it fuels the sense of possibility. But a failure to equip minds with the skills for understanding and feeling and acting in the cultural world is not simply scoring a pedagogical zero. It risks creating alienation, defiance, and practical incompetence. And all of these undermine the viability of a culture,” (42-23).

In 21st century America, there is an ever-widening gap between the haves and the have nots, and a steady decrease in the middle class. Where we should be moving toward an enlightened society — and many in power give lip service to this goal — our policies are moving us backward and are becoming more reminiscent of feudalism than progressivism. The question is how long will the average American tolerate this New Serfdom before taking action?

Works Cited

Bruner, Jerome. The Culture of Education. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Payne, Ruby K. A Framework for Understanding Poverty, 4th ed. Highland, TX: aha-Process, 1996.

“Urban Schools Deserving of Far More Credit than They Receive.” Tom Hanson, ed. OpenEducation.net. 10 July 2008. <http://www.openeducation.net/2008/07/10/urban-schools-deserving-of-far-more-credit-than-they-receive/>. Accessed 15 July 2008.

Wang, Margaret C., Geneva D. Haertel, and Herbert J. Walberg. “Fostering Educational Resilience in Inner-City Schools.” LSS Publication Series No. 4. 1997. <http://www.temple.edu/lss/htmlpublications/publications/pubs97-4.htm#future>. Accessed 16 July 2008.

Yglesias, Matthew. “The Truth About Urban Schools.” TheAtlantic.com. 23 June 2008. <http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/the_truth_about_urban_schools.php>. Accessed 16 July 2008.

Colleges Begin to Ignore Tests as Admissions Criteria

The Great Pendulum Swing:  Colleges Begin to Ignore Tests as Criteria for Acceptance

As opened yesterday’s New York Times and read the article by Tamar Lewin, “2 Colleges End Entrance Exam Requirement,” I couldn’t help but smile.  As Bush II’s reign is ending and the rats are abandoning the ship, this is another indication that the wind beginning to change.  

According to the article, both Smith and Wake Forest have decided to waive the requirement.  Colleges and universities making this decision are discovering that relying so heavily on college entrance examinations like the ACT and SAT, that are supposed to predict a student’s ability to do college-level work, oftentimes serve only to limit their recruitment, and that there are much more accurate, and holistic ways to assess  a student’s ‘fit’ at a university, such as recommendations, essays, and other activities.

And they’re absolutely right in doing so.  What their decision speaks to is the recent trend in many high schools to focus on test preparation.  And why is this?  Because of No Child Left Behind.  

Here’s a little background about No Child Left Behind:

As a result of the 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk, the Congressional Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Crossroads project determined that we needed to identify steps that lead schools to “either excellence or failure in order to develop a positive vision for change.”  What puzzled me about this was the assumption that many schools “stagnate in mediocrity,” information that may have led people to believe that our nation was indeed in a crisis that perhaps never was.   

There have always been schools more successful than others, but when people read that we were a nation at risk, well, they felt they had to do something about it.  Unfortunately, the project found that a “characteristic of successful schools to be a focus on ‘mastering the basics’,” (47) its critics pointing to California’s failure with whole language in the 1980s, which saw test scores in that state plummet to 49^th out of the 50 states when it had previously been first. 

The back to the basics movement seems to have fueled the accountability fire, with George W. Bush saying in 2002 that “accountability is the cornerstone of reform” (Rudalevige 24).  While the accountability measures in NCLB were not new ideas, reform measures began with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, it was the first comprehensive act to boost standards and provide accountability for education in this country.  According to Rudalevige, NCLB operates via an “accountability tripod” of standards, tests to measure those standards, and a system of penalties and rewards for failure to achieve those standards (25).  He asserts that NCLB was passed because congress was under pressure to draft something (43), though “everyone had different ideas of how to make it work” (44). 

So what are the provisions of NCLB?  Peterson and West outline the key provisions of the act in their book, No Child Left Behind?:

• States must assess the performance of all students in grades 3-8 in math and reading each year.  An additional test is to be administered during grades 10-12.

• Test results must be released to the public (8).

• Schools must show, through test results, that they are making adequate progress toward full educational proficiency (8).

• Schools that don’t measure up will be identified as needing improvement, and parents will have the option to place their child in another public school in the same district (8).

• Schools that don’t improve after five years will be “restructured” by the school district (8).

• States must take over persistently underperforming schools (8).

They continue to predict that “student, teacher, and school accountability all pose major challenges” (11), particularly in a system run by the Department of Education, that is often criticized in congress.   

 In addition, to further complicate the issue, “while standards-based reform is to ensure all children to be taught knowledge and skills to a specified level of mastery, setting meaningful performance standards makes it inevitable that some students, teachers, and schools will fail to meet those standards,” (Hess 57).

Even though most of the focus of NCLB is on raising the bar via improved test scores, the problem is that many school have been so paranoid about the above ramifications, that all they have been focusing on is test preparation.  Curriculum is being driven by standardized testing.  People will say otherwise, and tell you that kids who are delivered a solid curriculum will do well on any test, but the truth is that tests are being created to mimic standardized testing formats, kids are being prepared how to write for standardized tests – it’s all about the test scores.  

This is where economics come into play in a school system.  The better the test scores, the better the school are perceived, the higher the property values.  It’s that simple.  

The question is:  Is anyone concerned that we will have a nation of good test-takers and not of critical thinkers?  That our children will excel in being able to choose the “correct” answer from a list, but will not be able to think outside of the box?  What will be the ultimate cost of that?

That is why Smith College and Wake Forest University are taking a stand.  They see what’s happening.  They see that their incoming freshmen are taking the ACT or SAT multiple times and only sending their best scores – at what cost?  When are they learning what they should be learning in high school?  Instead, they’re spending time with tutors trying to get the highest ACT or SAT score.

What’s worse is that because someone decided that the ACT was a bar for high standards, it is now a mandatory examination for 11^th grade students in Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, and Wyoming.  No wonder the ACT had a record number of students taking its examination this year – 1.3 million students in 2007!  Who’s making all of this money?  The ACT corporation is getting it for every 11^th grade student in five states, whether or not that student plans to attend college or not.  What a scam.  So if Johnny is a special needs student,  and is struggling with a modified program in high school, no matter, the ACT is still getting money from the state for him to take the ACT – AND Bush’s NCLB Act requires that he MUST be tested because we are a nation of standards.  Unconscionable.  

Did I mention that George W. Bush’s brother, Neil, is the president of a multi-million dollar educational software firm, Ignite!Inc. that is capitalizing on this “gap” in education created by his brother’s unfunded mandate? 

Bravo to Smith, Wake Forest, and the others who are shying away from using ACT or SAT scores as admittance criteria, for taking a stand and realizing that students are much more than numbers – something our government has yet to learn.  Perhaps the trickle down will happen much more quickly, before we lose an entire generation.  

I don’t know about you, but when I’m old, I don’t want to be faced with a young person who has a clipboard with the following:

Q.  Here is an old woman crying.  You may do the following:

A.  Try to console her.

B.  Call her family.

C.  Get the other nurse who likes old people.

D.  Give her an injection.

E.  Ignore her.

 

Works Cited

Hess, Frederick M.  “Refining or Retreating?  High-Stakes Accountability in the States.”  No Child Left Behind?  The Politics and Practice of School Accountability.  Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West, eds.  Washington:  Brookings Institution Press, 2003.  55-79.

Peterson, Paul E. and West, Martin R.  “The Politics and Practice of Accountability.”  No Child Left Behind?  The Politics and Practice of School Accountability.  Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West, eds.  Washington:  Brookings Institution Press, 2003.  1-20.

Rudalevige, Andrew.  “No Child Left Behind:  Forging a Congressional Compromise.”  No Child Left Behind?  The Politics and Practice of School Accountability.  Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West, eds.  Washington:  Brookings Institution Press, 2003.  23-54.

United States.  House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Committee on Education and the Workforce.  Education at a Crossroads:  What Works and What’s Wasted in Education Today.  105^th Cong., 2^nd sess.  Washington:  GPO, 1998

On Politics and Education: How the Business Model Perpetuates the Banking Concept of Education

We live an era when education has been invaded by the ideology and nomenclature of the business world. Educators are service providers, students and parents customers, and state and federal entities CEOs.

In this top-down business model, the CEOs, many of whom lack expertise in the field, establish blanket standards (They sound great come election time — who doesn’t support high standards?) and expect optimal results without considering outside factors that affect student performance. 

In turn, educators are expected to achieve success with all students, without regard to disability, socio-economic factors, or funding equity. Key indicators, aka standardized test scores, fail because they compare heterogeneous groups of students (this year’s 11th graders vs. last year’s) instead of documenting longitudinal progress for individual students (something the federal government is attempting to remedy by offering longitudinal study grants to states, though only 14 states received the grant and a system of tracking individual student progress has yet to be administered). Furthermore, the current efficiency standard is flawed. Yes, it’s much easier — and cheaper — to scan a student’s multiple choice responses than to assess students using multiple means, such as documenting individual classroom performance and writing ability, but these only provide a brief snapshot of a student’s performance. 

Meanwhile, today’s education consumers, or customers, are left to the whims of the market, where savvy consumers demand and pay for excellence, while others are thrown leftovers, victims of an unfair market economy that tends to draw the strongest, most successful teachers to higher paying jobs in districts with more resources. Naysayers need only consider a similar market comparison, the grocery store. Grocery stores in urban areas, such as Detroit, are much different from those in the suburbs. While urban groceries offer limited fare, oftentimes in dilapidated conditions lacking modern conveniences, suburban groceries offer plethora options alongside the latest technological innovations. Where the customer is treated suspiciously in urban markets (witness bars on the windows, concrete barriers outside the main doors, and security guards), the suburban customer is king. 

What is wrong with applying this model to the education of our young people? Is it fair that some of our citizens can obtain a stellar public education, while others are left in struggling schools, unable to break away from mediocrity? Critics argue that instituting a voucher system, where students can take their funding dollars to the school of their choice, would create healthy competition, forcing unsuccessful schools to either buck up or close. The reality is that even with vouchers, students who have no means of transportation or parents able to advocate for their education will be left behind, victims of socio-economics. How many charter schools in urban areas have proven successful? In Philadelphia, according to a multi-year study conducted by RAND Education, Mathematica Policy Research, and Research for Action (for the William Penn Foundation, Philadelphia Public Schools, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Joyce Foundation, and Stranahan Foundation), students attending charter schools exhibit no increase in performance versus those who attend public schools. Edison Schools, the for-profit education company, has experienced dismal results in Philadelphia and other cities where it has instituted its concept of free-market education, and is now forging more heavily into electronic education endeavors as its attempt at privatizing public education has shown that a free-market approach does not result in a better education for its students — or a profitable bottom line (their NASDAQ stock plummeted when it couldn’t turn a profit with schools). 

So what is the goal of education? In “Democracy and Education,” the second chapter in the book Chomsky on MisEducation, Noam Chomsky explains this aim through the works of John Dewey and Bertrand Russell. Dewey maintains that “the ultimate aim of production is not production of goods but the production of free human beings associated with one another on terms of equality,” (38), while Russell argues that education is ” ‘to give a sense of the value of things other than domination,’ to help create ‘wise citizens of a free community,’” (38). 

Medford Evans and George R. Clark, writing in Harper’s Magazine in 1944, discuss “Liberal Education Versus Vocational Training” (page 60): “In every society where there is a ruling class there is one kind of education for rulers and another for the ruled. Vocational training, which confines itself to teaching skills, tends to limit the individual’s interest in general social problems and to discourage intelligent participation in political life. As such, it is the ideal education for the servants of the ruling class. It is sharply distinguished from a vital program of liberal education such as that which provides a broad general training for rulers … The real issue is a political rather than an academic one: how widely available should liberal education be? There is no more radical and democratic idea afloat in educational circles today than that of providing liberal education for everyone.”

Because of the shift from an industrial society to an informational one, however, 21st Century education requires that its students achieve more than ever before — the bar is raised for everyone. Today’s “vocational training” dictates advanced literacy skills as well as knowledge that is more comprehensive. While it is still skill-based, the necessary skills to succeed are more advanced compared to those of previous generations, where skills were not necessarily linked to a high rate of literacy. The expectation is that all students receive some kind post-secondary schooling, and those who do not — or those who do not have the skills — fall between the cracks, doomed to failure.

The argument one hears most frequently from conservatives is that in America, people need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps — that equality is achievable for all. Others argue that the nature of the system dictates the inevitability of failure on the part of those who can least afford it — the poor — and that an underclass is needed and maintained by it. That is why we need motivating and successful teachers, educational revolutionaries, in under performing schools. Given the same resources, success is achievable — if that is what the government and its business model proponents want. 

The question is whether they really want that. Paulo Freire asserts that the dominant elites do not want people to think; those who do will not serve their purposes (122). After all, what would happen if everyone in this country were educated to a high degree? Who would work in low paying, menial jobs? Surely not an individual with a bachelor’s degree in history — or any other educated people. The reality is the current system needs to maintain the status quo or else the economy will fall apart. That is why public education has never been fixed: it is needed to perpetuate the class system in the United States. The upper classes send their children to private schools for the elite, while upper-middle class families’ children attend top-performing public schools, middle class families’ children attend middle-of-the-road schools, and those in the working and lower classes send their children to struggling schools. Sure, we want the lowest performing students to achieve more now, but there is no expectation they will ever achieve along the lines of those in private college preparatory schools. All that is required is a literacy level acceptable enough to drive the knowledge economy — they still must serve a purpose and fill a role, but advancement is nevertheless limited to those in “the club.” This is not merely an education issue, but a political one. No wonder the business model is now driving education.

Which brings me to the Banking Concept of Education. All children can learn, but some are victims of their zip codes. Evans and Clark were on to something in 1944 when they identified class distinction in education. In fact, the type of education we see most often in the public sector — the education for the masses — applies Freire’s Banking Concept of Education presented in his now-classic 1970 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Whereas upper class children attend schools that emphasize critical thinking and a free-exchange of ideas, undoubtedly providing the Liberal Education necessary for future leaders, other children attend schools where the teacher/boss disseminates information for their consumption. It is in these schools that test-preparation and memorization of facts abound, limiting opportunities for developing critical perspectives or engaging in critical thought. It is in these schools where punitive rules abound and students abide by bells and sit in rows, unable to explore natural curiosities. It is in these schools that the future workforce is conditioned, and those who do not follow the program are doomed to a marginal life. When these students are presented with alternative forms of learning, as seen by the success of Teach for America and other programs, their potential is unlimited and success is proven. Freire writes, “The solution is not to ‘integrate’ [these students] into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become ‘beings for themselves,’” (74) critical thinkers able to participate in society. Teachers must work with students as partners in their education (75), because “knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other,” (72). 

This is how the elites are educated, so why not everyone else? What is the lesson we really want all of our kids to learn?

 

Works Cited

Chomsky, Noam. Chomsky on MisEducation. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000. 

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Continuum, 2007.