Follow the Money

http://www.alternet.org/education/my-so-called-public-school

This article is a must read.

My school and every school I have worked at in NYC raises supplemental funds (thousands) to be able to pay for field trips, art, music and after school programs. The so-called “best schools” in NY raise millions of dollars so they can hire additional teachers and assistant teachers and pay for special programming. Charter school networks can raise millions to make co-teaching models, tech resources, and school in summer possible. The only schools that don’t have access to this bounty are low and middle income public schools. Some of these schools receive title-1 funding designated toward constrained uses, but even that falls short compared to the hundreds of the thousands of dollars wealthier schools raise through parent foundations and/ or property taxes. Meanwhile school budgets are tied up in testing, expensive consultants, the latest tech, and new curricula thanks to ever shifting education policy that favors testing and tech companies over schools. This is not equitable.

So, who should be held accountable for failing schools? Local and federal governments who pass the buck on funding and scapegoat teachers. Follow the money.

 

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Don’t Know Much About History

Is anyone else thinking that we should get over our obsession with job readiness and coding and start teaching civics, history and critical thinking again?

It is ironic that in an election year full to the brim with historical myth, deceit, ignorance and intolerance all anyone can say about education is “coding! More coding!” Remember when education used to be viewed as essential to democracy?

In the most elite private schools and liberal arts colleges students do more than math drills, ELA exercises and an hour of code. They learn how to think. They are empowered to express informed opinions. They are empowered to see themselves as agents of change, to think critically and engage in democracy.  But we continue to manage public schools like factories- with economic rather than human, democratic goals. Beneath this reality is an insidious assumption that only our elites should learn how to think and engage critically in the democratic process, and that all everyone else needs is vocational training.

But education should be about more than job readiness for everyone, not just the already privileged. If I’ve gained anything from watching this circus of an election cycle, its a powerful reminder of the importance of history, critical thinking and empowerment in education.

The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think — rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.- John Dewey

A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over the long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is neglected. -Eleanor Roosevelt

To the Billionaires Destroying Public Ed

Between Netflix, Facebook, the Koch brothers, a slew of corporate loving politicians and some other billionaires , public education is being systematically destroyed.

Why do all these people care?

Charter schools and “reformed” public schools have a way of funneling money to tech companies with ed products, publishing companies, test prep companies. Companies, companies, companies. Money, Money, Money.

Charter schools have a way of segregating and dehumanizing children of color. Keeps them in their place you might say. Hmm, I wonder why all these white billionaires would want to do that?

Charter schools have a way of de-professionalizing teaching and paying young inexperienced “teachers” – mostly women- to work long hours without any labor protections. Most of these people end up leaving teaching after a few years. I wonder where they end up working?

Charter schools have very little oversight and discriminate against students with disabilities. Billionaires love not having oversight. That’s how people become billionaires!

Charter schools cost the states less money than public schools because they raise so much privately. ( AND SOME OF THEM ARE FOR PROFIT- HOW IS THAT ALLOWED?)  That means millionaires, billionaires and gazillionaires can give tax deductible donations instead of oh, paying a lot more in taxes to help keep public schools open for all students. That makes them feel really good about themselves.

Well, here’s what I want to tell all these CEOs, in a moment of desperation at 6:17 am before I leave for the public school I work at every day.

You are not helping.

In fact, I think you are not good people.

You are motivated by your deepest prejudices and self interest.

Why don’t you go open a library or museum? That’s what rich people used to do. It was cool.

I would totally go to the Koch Brothers Memorial Library. Or the Mark Zuckerberg Museum of Something.

You want to know about some actual good people- I invite you to come to my school. You can arrive with the teachers at 7 am, see the thriving PUBLIC school community we’ve created, see a school that is actually racially and economically diverse ( 1 in a million!), see a public school building that is beautiful and kids are excited to come to every day, see a group of teachers who work 12 hour days partly to compensate for all the bullshit we have to deal with from the politicians in your pockets.

Yes that’s right, in everything you have done you make schools worse and you are WIDENING the achievement gap. You are making it harder to be a teacher and harder to be a learner. With all your obsession over standardization, accountability and school “choice” you are relegating the poor children you presume to help to days of uniformed, segregated, boring, scripted and ultimately useless test prep.

And you know what, I bet you would never send your white, billionaire children to a public school anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personalized Education is a Scam

Personalized education is code for students sitting in front of computers programmed according to their level in math, reading etc. This kind of “education” is great for tech companies, but research shows it is not so great for kids.

My experience proves the same: all my “high achieving students” spend their weekends at museums, parks and zoos, in art classes or building structures at home. All the kids that spend their time on a DS, computer or staring at the tv are the ones with delayed language development, non-existent problem solving skills and poor self control. My main goal every day is to level the playing field with lots of messy, hands on, interactive learning experiences and an emphasis on interpersonal skills.

Learning is a social process and relationships between students and teachers are the basis for all real learning.  Children learn by doing- with their bodies, their senses, their voices and with each other. This is not my opinion, it is proven by decades of research.

Computers are fine and can be a useful tool for skill building, research and  creating student materials. Pencils are also useful for learning, but no one is saying that they can fix everything missing in education.  There should be computers in classrooms, but they can never replace teachers and can never replace the social, active and sensory experiences that constitute real learning.

I’m glad I have a computer in my classroom, but if I had to choose I’d take scissors, glue, and construction paper any day.

http://dianeravitch.net/2015/12/12/leonie-haimson-did-mark-zuckerberg-make-another-mistake/