The message of these films has become alarmingly familiar: American public education is a failed enterprise. The problem is not money. Public schools already spend too much. Test scores are low because there are so many bad teachers, whose jobs are protected by powerful unions. Students drop out because the schools fail them, but they could accomplish practically anything if they were saved from bad teachers. They would get higher test scores if schools could fire more bad teachers and pay more to good ones. The only hope for the future of our society, especially for poor black and Hispanic children, is escape from public schools, especially to charter schools, which are mostly funded by the government but controlled by private organizations, many of them operating to make a profit.
According to Ravitch, director/producer Davis Guggenheim ignores mediocre and underperforming charter schools to highlight a few “superstar” charter academies. She asserts that he cherry-picks evidence favoring his opinion and ignores counter-evidence in order to discredit teachers, teachers’ unions, and the US public education system as a whole:
Why did he not also inquire into the charter chains that are mired in unsavory real estate deals, or take his camera to the charters where most students are getting lower scores than those in the neighborhood public schools? Why did he not report on the charter principals who have been indicted for embezzlement, or the charters that blur the line between church and state? Why did he not look into the charter schools whose leaders are paid $300,000–$400,000 a year to oversee small numbers of schools and students?
Guggenheim seems to believe that teachers alone can overcome the effects of student poverty, even though there are countless studies that demonstrate the link between income and test scores. He shows us footage of the pilot Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier, to the amazement of people who said it couldn’t be done. Since Yeager broke the sound barrier, we should be prepared to believe that able teachers are all it takes to overcome the disadvantages of poverty, homelessness, joblessness, poor nutrition, absent parents, etc. [...]
Guggenheim skirts the issue of poverty by showing only families that are intact and dedicated to helping their children succeed. One of the children he follows is raised by a doting grandmother; two have single mothers who are relentless in seeking better education for them; two of them live with a mother and father. Nothing is said about children whose families are not available, for whatever reason, to support them, or about children who are homeless, or children with special needs. Nor is there any reference to the many charter schools that enroll disproportionately small numbers of children who are English-language learners or have disabilities.
Ravitch notes that Guggenheim also fails to mention that the cost-per-student at one high-performing charter school is $35,000. Contrast that to the average for public schools, which averages a little over $10,000 per student. Ravitch makes a strong case that federally-funded, privately run educational institutions set the stage for financial incentives that foster abuse. She describes something else that Guggenheim left out: the despicable practice of expelling underperforming students in order to artificially boost test scores.
In contrast to American schools, Finland’s schools consistently perform at the top of the developed world. Guggenheim omits important details about the Finnish paradigm as well (I’ll come back to the Finnish model in a moment):
Guggenheim ignored other clues that might have gotten in the way of a good story. While blasting the teachers’ unions, he points to Finland as a nation whose educational system the US should emulate, not bothering to explain that it has a completely unionized teaching force. His documentary showers praise on testing and accountability, yet he does not acknowledge that Finland seldom tests its students. Any Finnish educator will say that Finland improved its public education system not by privatizing its schools or constantly testing its students, but by investing in the preparation, support, and retention of excellent teachers. It achieved its present eminence not by systematically firing 5–10 percent of its teachers, but by patiently building for the future. Finland has a national curriculum, which is not restricted to the basic skills of reading and math, but includes the arts, sciences, history, foreign languages, and other subjects that are essential to a good, rounded education. Finland also strengthened its social welfare programs for children and families. Guggenheim simply ignores the realities of the Finnish system.
In her final paragraphs, Ravitch concludes:
There is a clash of ideas occurring in education right now between those who believe that public education is not only a fundamental right but a vital public service, akin to the public provision of police, fire protection, parks, and public libraries, and those who believe that the private sector is always superior to the public sector. Waiting for “Superman” is a powerful weapon on behalf of those championing the “free market” and privatization. It raises important questions, but all of the answers it offers require a transfer of public funds to the private sector. The stock market crash of 2008 should suffice to remind us that the managers of the private sector do not have a monopoly on success.
Ravitch has a powerful working knowledge of education in America, and she cites credible sources to make her case. I am no education expert, but I have conducted some basic research into Ravitch’s credentials. Absent any glaring red flags I’m fairly comfortable deferring to her judgment. I find her expertise even more credible because she has engaged in reflective self-examination and her opinions have evolved as a result–the hallmark of a critical thinker. During her tenure in GW Bush’s administration, she lobbied strongly in favor of the now-discredited No Child Left Behind legislation. She has since emphatically changed her mind. I think she makes a compelling argument that these films inaccurately portray both the public and charter systems in the US.
Back to the Finnish system.
I view a good education as a basic human right. It seems both intuitively and empirically obvious to me that successful pubic education depends on a social and political culture that fosters a strong egalitarian society. By this I mean that all citizens should enjoy a basic standard of living as a jumping-off point for greater success. No one should be homeless or lack access to health care. No one should be hungry. No school should lack functioning toilets and lack of heat as William Ayers described schools in inner-city Chicago in a speech I attended at the University of Wyoming this spring. He advocated movingly for strong standards and opportunities for all of our students rather than standardization of mediocrity.
The Myth of Charter Schools feeds right into my own opinion mirrored in this article in the Washington Post: “[...] a successful, competitive society should provide basic social services to all its citizens at affordable prices or at no cost at all.” I decided to check out whether the success of the Finnish educational system supports my own bias favoring quality, free public education underpinned by a strong network of social services.
The BBC has a great overview of the Finnish system here.
“The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.”
Counterintuitively, Finnish students spend fewer hours at school and study in a relaxed informal environment. The higher-performing students help the struggling ones, and there is an air of egalitarian learning–all of which mirrors my son’s very positive experience in our local Montessori school.
In significant contrast with the US, teaching is a prestigious career in Finland, and both the BBC video and the Washington Post article stated that all Finnish teachers hold Master’s degrees.
Obviously the Washington Post article resonates with me. Here’s author Robert G. Kaiser’s entire quote from above:
Finland is a leading example of the northern European view that a successful, competitive society should provide basic social services to all its citizens at affordable prices or at no cost at all. This isn’t controversial in Finland; it is taken for granted. For a patriotic American like me, the Finns present a difficult challenge: If we Americans are so rich and so smart, why can’t we treat our citizens as well as the Finns do?
Why indeed. There are far fewer people in Finland, around 5.3 million, with a population density of 40/square mile. In the US there are around 310 million people with a population density of 83/square mile. (I live in a large rural state, so even 40/sq.mi. sounds like a lot of people to me.) All that breathing room in Finland has produced a political culture that is very different than the American paradigm:
Finns have one of the world’s most generous systems of state-funded educational, medical and welfare services, from pregnancy to the end of life. They pay nothing for education at any level, including medical school or law school. Their medical care, which contributes to an infant mortality rate that is half of ours and a life expectancy greater than ours, costs relatively little. (Finns devote 7 percent of gross domestic product to health care; we spend 15 percent.) Finnish senior citizens are well cared for. Unemployment benefits are good and last, in one form or another, indefinitely.
On the other hand, Finns live in smaller homes than Americans and consume a lot less. They spend relatively little on national defense, though they still have universal male conscription, and it is popular. Their per capita national income is about 30 percent lower than ours. Private consumption of goods and services represents about 52 percent of Finland’s economy, and 71 percent of the United States’. Finns pay considerably higher taxes — nearly half their national income is taken in taxes, while Americans pay about 30 percent on average to federal, state and local governments.
Note how much less Finns spend on health care and yet achieve half the infant mortality rate. I found this statistic shocking. I looked it up, and yes, Finland has 3.47 deaths/1000 live births. In the US that jumps to 6.7. Note how much more they pay in taxes to support their public programs.
Because I have a bias in favor of the Finnish system, I wanted to ignore this part of Kaiser’s article:
I found Finnish society beguiling on many levels, but in the end concluded that it could not serve as a blueprint for the United States. National differences matter. The Finns are special and so are we. Ours is a society driven by money, blessed by huge private philanthropy, cursed by endemic corruption and saddled with deep mistrust of government and other public institutions. Finns have none of those attributes.
Kaiser concludes that America would benefit from emulating the Finnish educational system but leaving behind the egalitarian society business. I fear educational reforms in the US won’t be very effective without some level of basic social support systems addressing poverty and inequality.
The complicated Finnish language includes the word talkoot, which means, roughly, “doing work together.” It’s a powerful Finnish tradition, and reflects a national sense that “we’re all in the same boat,” as numerous Finns said to me. This idea has always appealed to Americans, but in this country it has nearly always been an abstraction. Finns seem to make it real.
Talkoot sounds like a very good place for America to begin reforming education.
Isn’t it ironic that when a government budget finds itself in financial pinch,that one of the first things that go onto the budget chopping block is education? That is what happened here in South Carolina last year. And ironically SC is one of those places where privatization of the public schools is being discussed.
Now granted we have an excellent charter school in my town. It is very poorly funded, getting what leftovers the county has in regards to funding. The kids are getting, from what I have heard from parents, a wonderful education. But we also have great public schools here as well. My county is fortunate that there is a diverse community and that the more affluent of us (well those who have jobs and mortgages) can help fund our public education.
But that isn’t the case all through the state. Sadly there is no even playing field when it comes to education dollars. People magazine just did a story on some schools where the buildings are in horrible shape, where teachers have overcrowded classrooms, and little or no money for any improvements of any kind. Yet that is all there is for kids. Who’s fault is that? How can anyone blame teachers who opt to work in these conditions? They are working because they care about the kids and their future, be damned the supposed impossible standards, they just want to try to teach Johnny to read and do math. I tried to find a link, but was unsuccessful.
Of course there is no shortage of private schools, they are just expensive, and out of reach for most Americans. They are not necessarily superior to public ones, and as has been pointed out can be some ideological differences that may not work for every family.
Let’s fix the system we have now. It does work, if people will let teachers do their job, encourage parents to get more involved, insist on governments to make public education a priority
Thanks Sylvie! There is a high-quality charter school where I live too, which I think is similarly funded with the leftovers. I read an article in the local paper yesterday that highlighted the spending disparity among various districts in my state. Some of it is a function of population density, but some of it is also local public school officials taking advantage of the rural system. The funding distribution formulas are, I think, ridiculously complicated and opaque.
One of the things that really bothered me about Ravitch’s article is that the kids whose neighborhood schools are crumbling and who will stand to benefit the most from quality schools are the kids who are least likely to have access to them. I agree–let’s fix the public system.
I didn’t realise how different the US system is. In Australia there is a mostly free public system, it is all run by states so it is mostly consistent. There is the every present problem of staffing rural and remote schools, but they do attempt to deal with it.
There is a cycle we (teachers) are finding very hard to break, if you want good teachers you should treat (and pay) them as professionals, but how can you do that when there are a lot of people out there who don’t deserve it. You can’t increase the status until people see teachers as worthy, but the best people won’t stay if they aren’t getting support and acknowledgement. And every parent knows what their child should be doing in school better than the teacher.
The US is in an interesting situation. Their productivity seems (to a complete outsider) to be based on momentum and numbers – if you have enough people there will be some brilliant ones. But there seem to be cracks appearing – the Australian dollar was worth more than the US dollar yesterday, something I don’t think has ever happened before. Will relying on the brilliant ones continue to work, or do steps need to be made to improve education for every one? And what is the purpose of a nation – to be strong as a nation and have a high average, or to make sure the bottom extreme isn’t too far down? There are arguments for and against both, and how a nation answers will influence what and how it provides.
@Deb YOur momentoum and numbers observation is actually a fairly apt one. The system wants children advancing equally and learning at an equal pace using pretty much a single standardized system. Of course its not too hard to see the problems with that. Children have different learning paces, and learning styles, so it can be daunting to those who struggle and frustrating to those who are ahead.
For example.
We moved to the state I am in now five years ago. My older daughter was in her final year. She needed one class according to SC standards to graduate. Her district made her take a full load. Why? We were told that she had to be full time, no options. As I didn’t have time to look into it, my poor daughter had to waste half a year taking classes she didn’t need.
My youngest daughter was two years behind her sister gradewise. Halfway through her senior year she would have met all the requirements by our state to graduate early. The district wouldn’t allow it. Why? because her graduating early would appear to the statistical data that she had dropped out, NOT even considering that she had completed her required course work. It was pretty much a warm bodies in the system sort of thing. Talk about a very pissed off mommy. So I instead dual enrolled her in the local community college. She got high school credit and college credits for the three courses she took. She only stepped foot on her high school campus to graduate.
Why was this a problem at all? Because there are different requirements for graduation between North and South Carolina, neighboring states. North Carolinas are more extensive. And then there is lack of allowance for kids who may have gotten ahead of the curve. Opting for dual enrollment in college is actually a fairly new concept for kids in that situation.
Deb: it can really feel like factory-schooling to me. I think the public education system here rose out of a need for workers rather than on a need for brilliant thinkers–or even out of a desire to educate children. It had to do with producing a competent workforce. I have to say that today, my subjective impression is that in some ways the school system is designed to support working parents so that we can keep more workers in the workforce. While I think society should support families’ needs, the focus still doesn’t seem to be about educating individual children.
All that said, my son is thriving at our small neighborhood public school. His teacher is great, most of the other teacher seem good, and the principal has fostered a culture of community and inclusion. Part of this has to do with where we live, I’m sure.
Also, we totally undervalue teachers and childcare workers of all types. They do such important work that the profession should be prestigious.
Sylvie: Your daughters’ stories reminded me that we don’t have half-day K options any more. So a younger K child who might just need to come home for lunch and a nap after school has to suck it up. It’s all about warm bodies like you said, and early preparation for the glut of standardized testing….
I was actually having a little rant about this just the other day. My daughter is a minority white kid in a mostly Aboriginal school. There are huge problems developing literacy in children whose first language is oral and have no school background, but I strongly disagree with some of the things that are being done. Rather than fostering pre-reading, creativity, persistence, imagination, problem solving and all those difficult skills that contribute to being thinkers and readers, the ‘quick fix’ of drilling kids in letters and numbers is happening. While this may be reassuring to be able to say ‘our kids can write all these letters’ it’s very short-sighted, and my rant was about producing good little black kids who will sit down, shut up, do as they’re told and stay on the bottom of the heap.
In Australia 4 year olds are entitled to 4 half days of school but it isn’t compulsory and how it is organised is up to the school. Most schools seem to be going 2 full days because it’s easier to timetable, but we’re lucky we get 5 afternoons. Even better, they put all the younger kids in the morning group because they are more likely to need that nap. I used to do an afternoon bus run and you could instantly pick the kids who had just started full days of school – they were they ones you had to wake up at their stop!
@Sylvie we still have a big problem moving interstate, when I was a kid even the ages were different but they’ve fixed that up. They’re trying to introduce a national curriculum to help deal with it. It’s very political – they’ve got to this point a couple of times then the government changes and it all stops again, but it’s supposed to start being introduced from 2011. There has been years of negotiation to get here, it will be exciting if it finally comes in. In the schools I’ve worked in it’s really bad because they are tiny communities with kids moving from around every few weeks. The NT brought in the remote schools curriculum last year so at least all the schools are teaching the same subjects at the same time, even if they’re doing it differently.
Re: Educational Mythology
Okay let’s get one thing straight, the USA is not Finland. As this country has such ethnic and religious issues, there can be no comparison. And the egalitarian bit falls right on its face when successful competition is the desired outcome. Is competition successful when only 10% of high school grads will receive academic scholarships and hold white collar jobs? Is 90% of the population just too stupid and unmotivated to have the right stuff, and fight for the brass ring? I’m a living example of the successful failure of the Seattle Public Schools’ Desegregation Program of the 60’s and 70’s. This was later officially cited as a complete failure; as my opportunity to even try to grab for the brass ring had been obliterated.
By contrast, the children I parented were homeschooled. The boy is finishing his engineering degree at the University of Washington while his sister is head director at a local dance theater. They, on average, were taught in one year more than public schools can teach in six. The higher academics were a different story. Yet at this time in their young adult lives, truly educated, they weren’t competing with anybody but themselves.
Public schools are nothing more than institutionalized childcare facilities. Where kids learn to fight and be competitive so they can be fighting competitive adults. It’s not teaching when kids are told what to learn, it’s called fascism. Teaching happens when a student is instructed on learning what they want to know. As a learned professor once told me, “We are all self-educated.”
Public schooling is not “free” if mandatory; kids know this. And the truly “smart” ones, around the age of twelve, will start to question and rebel against such hypocrisy, generally without defined reasoning; intuitively aware that they subjugated. Many don’t make it to adulthood without morally spinning out of control. Attacks of schools and institutions are protests; dropping-out is boycotting, and deviant behavior, rebellion.
So instead of complaining or arguing with fascist administrations, boycott and remove your children from these violent, bigoted institutions and you will see change. And you will also see a police officer on your doorstep relieving you of all parental rights unless you force your kids to attend school. Since this is what public education is really teaching; authority.
Shalom
@Frances
Sorry you had a bad experience in school, but there is no way you can say your experience is common for other students or that the public school system is so bad that it inhibits critical thinking. We can agree that the public school isn’t perfect, but it by and large works. The math you state doesn’t really add up. Lots of people get academic scholarships and go on to further their education. Let me show you just my family.
Every person in this line up is a product of public education. My paternal grandfather was an ears nose and throat doctor, my paternal grandmother took a break from college to raise a family, and graduated finally at the age of 79. My dad had a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. There were six of us kids. Of those six, two have post graduate degrees, two have associates, and I am currently working towards my bachelors, with hopes to get an MFA.
My own children. One has a bachelors, one stopped 2/3 of the way through to have children and will return for her bachelor’s in a few years, the third is working on an associates.
Of my co-workers in the salon where I work. Two have bachelor’s, one has an associates, two have been working off and on towards associates and at least one other is considering a return for her bachelor’s. And of course I am working towards mine. We have a staff of 15 from very diverse backgrounds, and I would say that all with maybe the exception of one went to public school. She home schooled her own kids until this year where she enrolled them into a private one.
For the record, academic scholarships was not something ANY of us found in great supply. My son got one, for a whole $500. So yes they are hard to come by for a reason, mostly because a whole crap load of kids are vying for those few scholarships, but they are absolutely not necessary to get a college degree or necessary to hold a white collar job.
Every damned year public schools graduate kids with the basics to go on an become independent thinkers. Every damned year children are equipped with the tools needed to succeed in a wide variety of fields, all over the country. This occurs in well funded public schools in affluent neighborhoods AND in dirt poor districts where funding to keep the lights on is hard to come by.
True public schooling isn’t free. We pay for school with property and other taxes, so that every child has an opportunity to get an education. Anyone can opt out of the public system, just so they prove that they have something in it’s place. IT isn’t being fascist, its just a desire to ensure that all children have a chance to learn the educational tools needed for life. You opted for homeschooling, and you are not alone. Others opt for private or charter schools. Many are not able to use those options, so we provide public schools for their children. No system is perfect, but if kids are learning and preparing for their futures,then that is an accomplishment.
The rebelling at age twelve is because they are twelve. I don’t care what kind of school they are in, most 12 year olds are pushing their boundaries at that time, being in the throes of puberty with all its raging hormones. That is the, to paraphrase a comic “This looks like my child, but I swear its the moodiest alien in the universe” stage of life. By about ninth grade the alien returns to its spaceship and you discover your child is back. To blame schools for that whole rebelling, questioning stuff is simply incorrect.
So you see public school is not necessarily a bad thing. Look at yourself. You went to public schools, and you certainly seem to be an independent thinker. No way did public schooling drum that out of you.
As an educator, I watched “Waiting for Superman” with a different set of eyes from those of the general public. Prior to watching the film, I read the accompanying book (also titled Waiting for Superman), Work Hard, Be Nice (the book about the founders of the Knowledge Is Power Program, which was one of the highly successful charter school programs featured in the documentary), and Whatever It Takes (the book mentioned in the original article). Because I have experience working in public schools (including my current position in a school that is on the state’s “naughty list” for not having a high enough percentage of our students proficient in reading and math) and took the time to do my homework before seeing the film, I came away with a very different message.
The film did highlight some successful charter schools, but I don’t think the central message was “Charter schools are wonderful, and public schools stink.” Rather, I found that the film and accompanying book did a good job of promoting the idea that it is possible for students from difficult backgrounds to learn and achieve academic success given the right formula of quality time spent with quality educators who are using research based methods to achieve good results. Keep in mind that some of these high performing charter schools have classes on Saturdays, keep students engaged from 7:30 am until as late as 5:00 pm, and offer additional support in the evenings for homework. (Teachers in the Knowledge is Power Program are issued cell phones which students use to communicate with them up until 9pm each night as they complete their assignments.) These successful programs do come at a financial price, to be sure. The issue is not just money, but utilizing funds in a productive manner. We should be learning from successful programs, whether they are charter schools, private schools, or public schools, and using this information to guide what we do to educate our students. I also think the film has done a great service by encouraging people to think and talk about education, because there is a great deal that needs to change in order to maximize benefits for everyone!
With that said, I feel that the message that many viewers leave with after seeing the film or hearing about the publicity surrounding it is “Charter schools are good and public schools are bad.” I do not feel that this was the intent of the filmmaker, and was not the central message of the movie. It is a shame that this is the message that is being echoed by the media.
I will save my discussion of the film’s portrayal of teacher unions perpetuating and encouraging mediocrity within the teaching profession for another time :)
Dear Ms Galloway:
You want numbers? One third of high school students will not graduate in Spokane Washington; and half of them were raped before the age of 16. Two thirds these uneducated abused youth will never be productive citizens, and the other third will commit suicide. No, these numbers are not accurate but they are not incorrect. Whereas painting the blood on the halls of educational institutions as pubescent hormonal rage is. In the US, for every family member, friend and associate that has a four year academic degree, there are at least a dozen adults who don’t.
It took over 20 years for the Seattle Public School bureaucracy to admit failure, it took me six. And I won’t be fooled again. Knowledge without wisdom is its own worst enemy. How many more kids will suffer before taxpayers stop throwing good money after bad, and beating a dead horse? But luckily for this generation there is an alternative: the Internet. I wish it was available when I was a youth.
However I will not dictate from a glass house. Curriculum and rudimentary academics are parental responsibilities. If children and their families are abandoned as shrapnel by a decaying aristocracy, than education is a moot point. Early childhood education, youth programs, and community legislation are very successful at spending tax dollars yet have not been entirely effective. I’m being facetious here, but honest. I wish I could give the reasons for this disparity in 200 words or less; and maybe Ms. Tonya K. will be happy to know I’m working on it. Nevertheless, neighbors and friends are all worried about the future. National poll numbers confirm this. There’s a storm brewing, and no amount of education can stop it. If schools are to function, families need to function first. It’s unwise to make beds in a burning house. We must first put out the fire. Maybe it’s time to ask the children: ya think?
Shalom
The author knows the US isn’t Finland – she specifically mentions the part of the review where it talks about the social differences between the countries. That doesn’t preclude looking at other models and finding out why they work and if parts of them are worth trying for.
I’m not certain what you mean by your statement about egalitarianism and competition – one of the themes of the post was reflecting on the education system, including its goals. So are you saying that competition should be the desired outcome? In any case I have to disagree with your interpretation of egalitarianism – you seem to think it means equality of outcomes. An egalitarian society is actually one that believes all people have the same potential, that their place is not set by birth, in contrast to hierarchical aristocracies or the US history of slavery and segregation. In the modern world this usually translates into equity rather than equality – equity acknowledges that some people have disadvantages and treats unequal people unequally, therefore promoting equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. This can be compatible with competition.
>>“It’s not teaching when kids are told what to learn, it’s called fascism. Teaching happens when a student is instructed on learning what they want to know. As a learned professor once told me, “We are all self-educated.””
Fascism is an extreme example of telling people what to learn, you are excluding the middle ground. In order for children to learn what they want to know, there are some building blocks that are necessary. As an example – your son (?) could not have become an engineer without advanced maths, and he couldn’t have learnt that without knowing his times tables. There are a lot of kids who wouldn’t choose to learn their tables – according to your argument they should then be excluded from anything that requires maths. Your daughter would never have known about theatre if someone hadn’t shown it to her. The point of set curricula is not to limit but to ensure the basics are covered so children have the option of going further, and to give them a wide range of experiences – they cannot choose to learn something they have never heard of. This is not subjugation any more than parents deciding what they will cook for dinner. You also seem to discount the skill or art of teaching – there are ways to teach any subject that will make them completely boring so any student would refuse, and likewise ways to make any subject interesting and fun to learn. It isn’t always the subject that is important but the learning experiences that are offered.
Your learned professor is just an argument from authority and I’m not even certain what you mean by it. In the sense that anyone can choose not to learn, definitely. Every single person needs to make an active decision to learn, it isn’t something that can be forced and that applies to school students too. The role of teachers at all levels is to give students the skills needed to manage their own learning. I cannot speak for US public schools because I am in another country, but from where I stand your view is limited and out of date. Schooling where I have worked is as much about collaboration as competition.
You seem to be confusing two completely different meanings of the word ‘free’ – the commenters on this piece are referring to school access that is not dependent on money, not to freedom. This goes back to the basic egalitarianism of access and opportunity. And I have no idea why you are talking about morals – they are not in the charge of public schools. I agree that dropping out is boycotting and that students rebel, but that doesn’t make them correct. They may be, or they may lack the understanding of the bigger picture.
As for your last paragraph – you have argued based on personal experience, authority and I suppose intuition against the public system. You have claimed your own children successfully completed the entire school curriculum in 2 years but have not shown how this could be extended to the entire population, yet that is exactly what you say should be done. Homeschooling is a perfectly legal option in Australia and I know many people online who homeschool in the US, so I’m not sure where the police come into it.
@Frances your second comment:
What on earth does the first paragraph mean and what does it have to do with public education? Are the figures correct or not? Do you have a reference or have you made them up? If they are actual figures, could students being abused possibly have anything to do with their educational failure rather than the public school system? Do you seriously suggest that students living with that type of dysfunction are able to self-educate using the internet? If they are living in those conditions how many of them have access to the internet and computers?
As an outsider I don’t believe the US public education system is doing well, but I’d like to see some figures to back up your claims that it is doing quite that badly. Because from what I’ve seen (which I believe originally comes from the same author discussed in the original post):
“The annual Gallup poll about education shows that Americans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the quality of the nation’s schools, but 77 percent of public school parents award their own child’s public school a grade of A or B, the highest level of approval since the question was first asked in 1985.”
In other words, while there is a general impression that there is a problem, parents are actually highly satisfied with the education their children are receiving.
Ah, I see, the problem isn’t authoritarian & competitive schooling, its all dysfunctional families. Wait, wouldn’t that make home schooling a bad idea?
By the way, I asked my daughter (a child) fabout this tricky issue. Her solution: “More Princesses!”
In our city, we have private schools, charter schools, public schools, and a healthy home-school system. All of these do appear to have their own pros and cons. My kids attend the city public schools, which have a choice program – allowing parents to choose which elementary school their children will attend, since they all have “themes.” We’ve chosen the public school option, since our school system tries to retain and reward good teachers, as well as maintaining low student-teacher ratios. They’ve also kept physical education, art, music and other subjects which some other school districts have removed. They’ve kept test grades high even though the demographics of the school are quite diverse, and also developed a STEM magnet program and an IB diploma system. All of these options, plus the excellent teachers, administrators, and active parent volunteers, have allowed my children to get a wonderful education so far,while allowing us to save the money that we could have spent on private or home-schooling for their college fund.
I’m very grateful that our district has focused on a diverse curriculum, maintaining good teachers, and reducing disparity between the students, even in a atmosphere of constant budget cuts and political pressure. I know that not all school districts have been so lucky – many have been hit hard by all of the cuts to education funding, and they are barely staying afloat.
I think that cutting money to education is shooting ourselves in the foot, and that these cuts are contributing to a decline in educational quality across the nation. Cutting education is cutting our children’s future, makes the difficult job of public schools even harder, and not everyone can afford alternatives. And the quality of those alternatives varies wildly from school to school, parent-teacher to parent-teacher. Ultimately, change in most places is needed – a high-quality curriculum standard, retention of good teachers, removal of bad teachers, more parent involvement, and removal of obstacles to education such as hunger, etc. These changes, plus a change in the current mindset of politicians that “education can always be cut,” would go a long way in improving our public school systems, and would give our children a better chance to be successful, hard-working citizens.
@ Frances “You want numbers? One third of high school students will not graduate in Spokane Washington; and half of them were raped before the age of 16. Two thirds these uneducated abused youth will never be productive citizens, and the other third will commit suicide. No, these numbers are not accurate but they are not incorrect. Whereas painting the blood on the halls of educational institutions as pubescent hormonal rage is. In the US, for every family member, friend and associate that has a four year academic degree, there are at least a dozen adults who don’t.”
So these figures, by your own admittance are inaccurate, yet they are the sort of figures that you use to back up your own claim? I don’t see how you expect us to believe them then.
Also to blame all that is wrong with society on public education is quite honestly a really long stretch. There is probably zero evidence to state that public education is the cause of, as you suggest, a rise in suicides amongst teenagers. In fact there is sound evidence to suggest that such a thing is caused by something else entirely..
My point is. Anyone can pull figures out of the air to make a claim. That doesn’t meant that those figures come anywhere near to accuracy. You see, what this site is, is a website by and for critical thinkers, or in layman’s terms a place for people who are less likely to accept something,just because someone said it so. We want to know why, we want to know how, and where and when. Yeah, we are those kind of people, those annoying kinds you knew in school, that always had their hands up asking questions. We hate “just because I said so.”
That being said, if you can back up your claim with facts, then you’ll find a more receptive audience, until then I think you are wasting your time.
@Susiethegeek
That has been pretty much my experience. My kids spent most of their school years in a very small public school system in a poor to middle class area, somewhat rural, definitely mountain. We had amazing teachers, a small but vibrant Arts and music program and parental and community support. There were a few private schools,and some parents home schooled. All got a good education and a fair amount of kids went on to get at least an associates degree. Where I live now, not as many are getting bachelors, but opting for Associates. Those that do get bachelors often move to another area. BUT most graduate, they all are literate, have math skills have had opportunities to participate in the arts, in music, in sports and other activities.
Frances, it sounds like you raised an educated, accomplished child despite the shortfalls of the Seattle Public Schools. Without specifics, it’s hard to know where that particular system went awry or whether the problems are inherent to the entire system or just to an isolated district. Not all parents have the option to homeschool (or charters, or private schools) or access to the internet, which is why I believe we need safe public schools that provide reliable standards of quality and access to all.
I am very concerned about your claim that half of children in the Spokane public system are raped. Surely you mean that as a metaphor? I think violent, dysfunctional families reflect a dysfunctional society. An egalitarian society with strong safety nets fostering peaceful, healthy families of all forms is the foundation for a strong education system.
Deb and Sylvie did an amazing job of addressing your arguments, but I wanted to say one more thing about your claim of fascism. We are limited to some degree by a shared reality, a shared alphabet, mathematical systems, sciences, etc. In order to function in society, children need to achieve a basic level of literacy in these areas. Teaching all children how to read English, for example, is not fascism. Teaching a false history or fabricating science, for example, for the purposes of indoctrinating children into an authoritarian culture, does border on fascism. Some public school boards are trying to move in that direction, unfortunately.
Tonya K: Thanks for providing some well-researched background information and perspective.
Rugbyologist: Obviously.
SusietheGeek: Your district sounds great! I agree that parents need to be very involved no matter what educational route they choose. Also good point about saving for college vs. private elementary/secondary. I have always imagined that providing an enriching, engaging home environment will go a long way toward supplementing public school shortfalls.
Re: Educational Mythology
Good; good. I seem to have struck a few chords here. Which was my intent, as I do not argue or complain; merely observe and share my findings. Yet I believe I was misunderstood. I never meant to imply that half the high school students in Spokane have been raped. I hate revisiting these numbers, but here we go: one out of six boys are raped, one of four girls are raped, therefore 20% of all children are victims of pedophilia. This number increases up to 50% in the demographic of disenfranchised underprivileged dysfunctional low income families. Are these numbers shocking? They should be. An equalitarian educational system is a good idea but how can it function when the learning curve of students does not reflect IQ, but domestic terrorism?
People in glass houses should not throw stones. My work with underprivileged low income youth was so emotionally devastating that when I found myself looking for a gun to give a 12 year old to blow away her perpetrator; I decided enough was enough. Fascism: You want to know fascism? These children have very little rights; they can’t work, must go to school and are under the authority of someone all the time. Now when these authoritarians have no ulterior motives but the care and safety of the child, it’s all good. But when this is not the case, hell is definitely for children. Do you hear it…their silent screams?
In truth it’s truly amazing that anybody gets educated in public schools. And my hat goes off to the teachers. The many hats they must wear; to inspire youth, to heal broken kids, to keep abuse children from hurting others. They know the social economic disparity of children’s’ learning abilities, and are often the first and last best hope for an abused child.
Notwithstanding, the problems of public schools cannot be fixed by teachers, their salaries or classroom size. Until the issue of how the lack of childhood civil rights makes possible their enslavement to their abusers is addressed, and as long as it’s just somebody else’s kid who lives in terror, their silent screams will not only be ignored but anyone hearing them will be too; before attacked and forced to prove it. I’m not in state of denial. I can read the writing on the wall. To fix public schools, we must first fix the children. Shalom
a few chords a song does not make
I have taught and worked in a Montessori School. Most of the teachers have been working there for 15 or more years. Many of them are former public school teachers. They took a pay CUT to work at this private school (it goes through grade 8). Smaller class size, freedom from regulation and endless testing, more parent/ teacher interaction and being treated with respect by the administration of the school are just a few of the reasons these teachers took a pay and benfit cut to continue the job they love doing.
I know three public school teachers that quit last year. They all said “I love the students, I love my fellow teachers, I hate the administration that won’t let me teach well.” These teachers were all at the high school level. They all taught at city schools. Many of their students were recent immigrants or poor English speakers. But that didn’t matter, they loved teaching. They didn’t love not knowing what they would be teaching year in and year out. Because the school district and administrations were into rules and regulations. All three teachers were insulted as year after year new “dress codes” were put in place. They all were “hello, we are adults. If we want to wear a nice pair of jeans why can’t we?” No, someone somewhere did a study that said teachers in jeans would not have the respect of the students. No, instead the teachers felt they did not have the respect of the administration.
(at the Montessori school, not only do the teachers wear jeans, the students address the teachers by their first names! Horrors!)
I simply do not understand how micromanaging staff will solve a problem that really has not as much to do with them as is assumed. I would think that it hinders productivity and employee satisfaction.
Sadly they are doing that kind of crap all over. It must be a trend, and I hate it. Even where I work it is happening. UGH!
Re: Educational Mythology
Ms Kitty, I hear you. My ninth grade teacher; two years later, quit teaching and was the real estate agent when my parents sold their home. She told me that it took about five years before a teacher burns-out, the best ones leaving while the others stay behind.
Anyway it got me thinking. If there was one thing that really could be changed or put back right in public schools it would be to re-integrate age groups, and re-segregate gender. I believe this was in the Finland model. I wonder how difficult this would be to implement; any thoughts people?
Shalom