Borderland

Responding to Chris Lehman’s post, All Children Can Learn, I share his questions. Chis asks,

…what is important for all students to know? What is more important — demonstrating recall or demonstrating problem-solving skills? Immediate ability or the ability to produce over time?

What are the schools we want? What are the schools we need? And how can we enact policy that might actually get us there?

There is, of course, another question as well… what does a well-educated person have to deeply understand?

With respect to problem solving and creativity, which Chis mentioned, David Thornburg posted an article about Anti-Intellectualism and Creative Flight in which he recognized the economic and political value of creativity, which falls outside the realm of mere skills instruction.

David Thornburg also criticized Marc Tucker, the architect of the Tough Choices blueprint “to remold the entire American system for human resources development,” which is a quote taken directly from his Dear Hilary Letter, dated (1992).

Consider who profits from education reform. The standards movement is not a national response to a grassroots outcry. It’s a corporate business-initiated movement that has been sold to a fearful middle class worried about economic and social insecurity. Gerald Bracey called it the “the dumbest, least democratic, least reality-based” scare tactic of them all. He pointed out that thriving economies are not necessarily linked to high test scores and that although the report emphasizes creativity and imagination, it also emphasizes tracking and testing ad nauseam, which will accomplish the very opposite. Capitalists can dictate political policy by threatening to move capital where conditions for profit-making are most favorable, and that’s where the push for school reform is coming from.

With respect to the economic threat that a globalized market presents, Arundhati Roy (my new favorite political commentator) said that :

There is a notion gaining credence that the Free Market breaks down national barriers, and that Corporate Globalization’s ultimate destination is a hippie paradise where the heart is the only passport and we all live happily together inside a John Lennon song. (“Imagine there’s no country…”) But this is a canard.

What the Free Market undermines is not national sovereignty, but democracy. As the disparity between the rich and poor grows, the hidden fist has its work cut out for it. Multinational corporations on the prowl for “sweetheart deals” that yield enormous profits cannot push through those deals and administer those projects in developing countries without the active connivance of State machinery – the police, the courts, sometimes even the army. Today Corporate Globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, preferably authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. It needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice. It needs nuclear bombs, standing armies, sterner immigration laws, and watchful coastal patrols to make sure that it’s only money, goods, patents, and services that are being globalized – not the free movement of people, not a respect for human rights, not international treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons, or greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, or god forbid, justice. It’s as though even a gesture towards international accountability would wreck the whole enterprise.

Anyone who doesn’t believe that US policy is being guided by a desire for Empire should have a look at The Project for the New American Century, a neocon think tank with the stated mission of “military strength and moral clarity” to be accomplished by increased defense spending, challenging regimes hostile to our interests, and liberalized global markets.

Alfie Kohn, in his Case Against Tougher Standards notes that

People from parents to Presidents have begun to sound like cranky, ill-informed radio talk-show hosts, with the result that almost anything can be done to students and to schools, no matter how ill-considered, as long as it is done in the name of “raising standards” or “accountability.” One is reminded of how a number of politicians, faced with the perception of high crime rates, resort to a get-tough, lock-’em-up, law-and-order mentality. This response plays well with the public but is based on an exaggeration of the problem, a misanalysis of its causes, and a simplistic prescription that frequently ends up doing more harm than good.

He listed “5 Fatal Flaws of Tougher Standards” (which I’ll paraphrase) that might serve as talking points among teachers as they try to address these problems with people who may not fully realize what’s at stake.

1. It gets motivation wrong. It’s hard for students to focus on both what and how they are doing without undermining the desire to learn.
2. It gets pedagogy wrong. A back-to-basics approach treats kids as though they were empty vessels to be filled with information, which is a theory of learning that is contradicted by both cognitive science and historical practice.
3. It gets evaluation wrong. Standardized tests provide only crude measures, and a system that relies on them for direction is seriously misguided.
4. It gets school reform wrong. Mandating improvement through rigidly prescriptive practices and emphasizing “accountability” discourages innovation and responsiveness to individual student and community needs.
5. It gets improvement wrong. Responding to the political drumbeat of “rigor” that emerged out of reports that schools were “dumbing down” curriculum results in only more of the same teaching that gave rise to the criticisms in the first place.

We need to continue to emphasize creative and critical thought, and to provide guidance that nurtures understanding. At the same time, teachers need to take their message to school boards, state and national congressional representatives, and to the parents of our students. We need to keep talking about this – even if we sound like crazy talk show hosts – because we all want kids to have choices that will afford them the opportunity to live as freely, creatively, and responsibly as possible. And we need to get it right.