I returned today from a long weekend in Virginia. There was a surprise party for my dad’s 80th birthday, and I flew 8000 miles for a trip that lasted less than 100 hours. It works out to an 80 mph weekend, on average. It’s tough attending family gatherings from so far away, but this was definitely worthwhile. It’s a good thing I don’t need to sleep much.
I took Jonathan Kozol’s Shame of the Nation [see Rethinking Schools' review] to read while I was enroute. Listen to Kozol’s excellent Counterspin interview (mp3). I found the book to be an engaging read, one that was both passionate and plain-spoken. Kozol documented the systematic disempowerment of Blacks and Hispanics through the agency of US education policy that has effectively constructed separate and unequal dual school systems for Blacks and Whites. Kozol focused his attention mainly on New York City schools, but he mentioned schools in many other parts of the country as well. He advocates active resistance to institutional inequity, and I’m left to wonder how long it will be until we begin to see organized efforts from the education profession’s rank and file.
Kozol noted the paralyzing effect of teaching to the reductive demands of high stakes tests, and noted how prevalent that practice is for students in schools with predominantly Black populations. He documented what, to me, would be unbearable conditions in which scripted “teacher-proof” lessons are mandated in underfunded, overcrowded schools plagued by high teacher turnover. I’ve heard and read about programs like Success for All (which promises “systematic, relentless teaching with early intervention when a child falls behind”), but never have I read in such vivid detail what they are like. Kozol quoted Thomas Sobol, former state commissioner of education in New York who is now “troubled by the unexpected consequences” of the standards movement:
We are giving kids less and calling it more, limiting what we teach to what we can easily measure, pushing our students to focus on memorizing information, then regurgitating fact. The student’s job…should not be only to absorb information, but to make connections, find new pattterns, imagine new possibilites….but imagination and inquiry are not a big item in the testing and accountability agenda….Thinking, feeling people are not given room to think and feel…Education involves the heart as well as the mind…Learning entails play and risk-taking as well as ordered study…As our students cram away in preparation for exams, what we are giving them now in many places is a stripped-down curriculum and instruction devoid of passion and meaning.
The book was on my mind this morning, still, when I opened my Bloglines and found a discussion on Wesley Fryer’s Moving at the Speed of Creativity that was initiated by Doug Johnson, who challenged the notion that teaching is an art, and wondered about the ethics of using progressive educational methods to “experiment” on students. Doug, your take on testing is provocative, and I thank you for raising the issue because it needs to be aired. As to whether “experimentation is ethical”, I say there has never been a bigger more misguided experiment than NCLB, which uses Skinnerian operant conditioning methodologies to coerce students and teachers into a mindless charade of learning in the name of efficiency and accountability. This devastatingly costly experiment may have NO research, other than the Texas Miracle to support it. Like the War in Iraq, it depends on one of the most destructive, ill-advised, immoral, racist government propaganda efforts that I have ever witnessed.
I am convinced that this law is rooted in racism, and my understanding of its racist mechanisms is becoming increasingly acute. My response will not be to run from it, or to yield, but to resist. Vocally. Actively. I intend to act as an ethical shield for my students as we find ourselves pushed irrationally in directions that I know to contradict learning, knowing, and believing in the truth that can be found in the meanings we, ourselves, make. We will be readers and thinkers. We will be mathematicians and logicians. We will be poets and storytellers. We will not be memorizers and slogan-chanters. I will not be doing “experiments” that demean the humanity, underestimate the intelligence, or paralyze the creative spark that is my students’ own unique gift, which is what education policy is driving many of us to do. If by allowing students to imagine a better world, one that does not yet exist, I am somehow in error, then I choose to be wrong.
I take heart from the demonstrations on behalf of immigrants to this country that we are currently witnessing. I suggest that parents, students, and teachers who object to this misguided, demoralizing attempt to “reform” education consider a march on Washington as well. I can be there in 12 hours. It’s a long flight, but I’ll do it again for a good enough reason.
6 Comments
Doug: I applaud your passion and insights. I have major problems with NCLB also, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say the law is entirely based on racism. I think politicians want some basic things, and that includes getting re-elected. The educational program termed “the Texas miracle” (but only called that outside our state, interestingly) was motivated primarily (I think) by a desire to have a campaign and political issue which could produce neat bar graphs and win widespread support. I think the authors DO sincerely want to improve educational outcomes and opportunities for students, but I think their political drive has overpowered any desire they have to find and support TRUTH. The truth, as you point out, is that NCLB is dumbing down our classrooms, chasing away good teachers, operantly conditioning students, teachers, and administrators alike to believe they exist only for an instrumental purpose: to insure test scores during the “season of testing” (which we are now in the middle of) are as high as possible.
This is dehumanizing and actually a crime. I support those like you who are speaking out against these policies, which serve to hurt the very people they are officially designed to help. We need to trust teachers again, and put our faith in them instead of in standards and high stakes assessment. High quality, passionate teachers who challenge their students and differentiate the curriculum to meet the needs and interests of their kids are the only hope we have a brighter educational tomorrow.
Keep up the good teaching and the blogging.
Education policy that has the effect of disempowering specific groups-racial, ethnic, socioeconomic-is racist, regardless of the intent of those who author and administer the policy. NCLB does that by making AYP contingent on the performances of racial subgroups within the student body overall. I agree with you otherwise completely, and I think your explanation of how we got here is right on. Since you agree that it is “actually a crime,” maybe you will eventually conclude as I have that this entire effort is rooted in racism, unconscious or not. If you don’t have time to read Kozol’s book, check out the interview that I linked to in the blog post. He covers the main points pretty thoroughly. I don’t want to wallow in a tiresome rant, but seeing as how this is “testing season” it’s on my mind lately.
Thanks for your support, Wesley.
Another brilliant and important post, Doug.
Wesley – I think you’re underestimating the importance of race in this issue. Since the Reagan administration, the Republican Party (and the DLC/Clintonian wing of the Democratic Party in the past 16 years) have made it their strategy to use “color blind” language which serves as a code for issues that, at best, are racialized, and at worst, are outright racist (best example: Reagan’s first speech after accepting the 1980 was in Philadelphia, MS – the place where 3 civil rights workers were assassinated in 1964. In front of an all white, confederate flag waving crowd, he said “I am now, and always have been, in favor of states rights.” No racial terms, but it’s pretty clear what every person there interpreted the statement to mean).
NCLB works in a similar way. Middle and Upper Class parents (who are mostly white) can support the policy because they all know the overwhelming majority of their kids will pass the tests without a significant change in their children’s educational program. However, at the same time, the program requires a wholesale reorganization of education for working class and poor students. I don’t think anyone would argue that the ability to pass an NCLB test will do anything to help students prepare for the dynamic world we live in (as Thomas Friedman’s loyal following amongst edubloggers would attest). NCLB, as we all know, leaves these children further behind. It is also part of the Republican/”New Democrat” strategy to further regulate all aspects of the lives of the poor and working classes (like Clinton’s ‘Welfare’ Reform).
I think you’re right though in terms of the political aspects of the policy. To borrow Lisa Delpit’s terminology, t is a classic case of appealing to people based on what they think is best for Other’s Peoples Children.
I agree completely with Doug and Stephen. The neoconservatives have invested much time and energy into language that obscures their true objectives. It is dismaying that they have been so successful. NCLB is a racist agenda and to suggest that it is motivated by good intentions is naive. Chris Lehman at Practical Theory calls NCLB an “attempt to break public education”, and I think that sums it up pretty well. Racism that is unconcerned by the outcomes of policy is just as blatant as racism directed squarely at intended outcomes.
I live in Long Island, NY. My wife has a professor who discussed this situation which just happened this year in a public high school. Very sad.
Eduardo V. Genao A magnet school in Hartford, CT has been stirring up a ton of controversy after its principal Eduardo V. Genao (pictured) allegedly coerced several mixed students to change their racial identity to white so that the school would qualify for more funding. Genao claims he asked for every student’s permission, but most deny this, and say that he guilted them into identifying as white for the good of the school:
Genao conceded that he asked teachers to help him identify biracial students and that he called the students to his office. In the course of discussing their racial classifications, he acknowledged, he spoke with them about the school’s funding. “I did indicate to the students and the parents how the formula works,” he said.
In fact, state guidelines tie the funding of magnet schools that opened before this year to residency, not race… to qualify for magnet school funding, schools must draw at least 30 percent of their students from the suburbs – a standard Sport & Medical Sciences Academy meets.
Race becomes a factor, for schools established before this year, in regard to compliance with the Sheff vs. O’Neill school desegregation settlement. It says 28 percent of a magnet school’s students must be white in order to count toward reducing racial isolation. With just 89 white students in a population of 400, or 22 percent, Sport & Medical Sciences falls far short.
Genao, who is in his first year at the magnet school and is new to Hartford, said he did not realize the state law linking funding to racial quotas applies only to new schools and not to established schools such as his. He denied, though, that the change in the students’ racial classifications was linked to money.
This case has drawn attention to the massive inconsistencies that still exist in the ways schools collect racial data. Of course, this can all be traced to the Department of Education’s delays in implementing federal guidelines that require it, along with all federal agencies, to allow people to check all that apply, instead of just one box.
Personally, I think this should be a wake-up call to us mixed folks that our ambiguous status can be exploited for others’ financial and/or political gain. Another good example of this is Ward Connerly’s ongoing campaign to eradicate all racial categories. He uses sob stories of mixed people who are forced to pick one box as an illustration of why racial categories don’t make sense. But what some people fail to realize is that this initiative is extremely dangerous because in effect, there would be no way of tracking civil rights violations or racial discrimination.
“Hamlin Gunther” left the same comment, word for word, on Movng at the Speed of Creativity. Perhaps it originated on this blog.
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