From the Bellingham Herald http://www.bellinghamherald.com/291/story/786150.html
Print version - Sunday, February 8, 2009
Feb, 7, 2009
(Cross-posted on the Social Issues blog)
Where are teachers' voices in national education debate?
LORRAINE KASPRISIN / THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
Discussions surrounding the problems public schools face have become dichotomized in the national debate with teachers increasingly demonized and their professional expertise belittled and often ignored. The recent disagreements over the choice of a new Secretary of Education in the Obama administration along with the petitions that were circulated reveal the immense animosity and polarization of that debate.
Rather than a rational conversation on a direction for alleviating the problems that face the public schools, the problem has been presented as a great showdown between the forces of "good and evil." Even the mainstream media were not immune to this seduction. Newspapers and magazines like the New York Times and the New Republic have presented the decision over a new Secretary of Education as a battle between the "new reformers" and the "old establishment."
Who are the new reformers? Apparently from these publications, they are the outsiders who wish to see the schools privatized and turned into a commodity on the free market. They cry out for high-stakes testing, accountability measures, merit pay for teachers, vouchers, and the expansion of charter school experiments. Who is the "old establishment?" They are the teachers and their unions, the education schools who educate them, and the local school districts that represent the public. They are seen as advocates for things like more equitable funding and smaller class size.
Nowhere in this debate do we really hear the voice of teachers whose relationship with children, their parents and the community are carried out everyday on the grassroots level. Ultimately, it is their actions in the classroom with children, and the understanding they bring from their professional knowledge and experiences that will really make a difference in the achievement of children.
How do we reconstruct the public debate that brings in their voice? With this in mind, I would like to raise six questions for readers to consider if we are to redirect the public debate.
-- Why are individual teachers often acknowledged while teachers collectively often demonized?
The teachers union has been projected as a huge monolithic power structure that resists any reform on behalf of children. Unions, of course, are the mechanism that workers in our society have for a chance at equal participation in the power structure. Why are teachers as workers seen as such a threat to a schooling system of a capitalist society?
-- Why are professional expertise and training seen as a threat to reform?
Why can't we talk about the nature of the professional knowledge that is required to teach effectively in a multi-cultural, multi-racial democratic society that is constantly reinventing itself? How can the institutional structures that are politically set, and out of the control of teachers, be made to be more conducive with what teachers know about the developmental learning stages of their students? Without a serious conversation at this level, the charges and counter-charges are useless and banal.
-- Why does so much of the discussion on teacher incentives rely on a business or corporate model?
The assumption that if teachers receive merit pay, they will perform better has been repeated as an unexamined mantra throughout these debates. Of course, teachers should get more pay. But all teachers deserve a decent wage for what they do. Are teachers going to be more motivated because they earn more than the teachers down the hall? Perhaps, what inspires teachers' work is the support they receive, the respect they have earned, the opportunities to learn more from each other as part of their daily work, the collegiality with their colleagues in purposeful dialogue and goal setting, and the voice of the profession in decision-making over meaningful changes that will bring about real achievements for children.
John Goodlad, the longtime critic of American schools, has called this process "educational renewal" as opposed to "educational reform."
-- Why are experiments like new charter schools articulated in the public debate as the prerogative of one side only? In reality, many teachers across the nation participate in these initiatives and are part of these experiments.
-- Why is the high-stakes accountability movement allowed to appropriate and dominate the language of accountability?
In today's climate, to argue against high-stakes testing and its effects is seen as an argument against accountability itself and used as an example of the status-quo. Why can't we take a serious look at what accountability can and should entail as a moral responsibility to assure equal chances for all our students rather than success on a high-stakes test?
-- Why can't we openly and honestly discuss the class disparities in this country and the legitimate concerns of parents and communities over the achievement gaps in student populations without using it for exploitation and a pretext for privatization and corporate gains?
-- Why can't we openly and honestly debate the public purposes of schooling in America? If advocates for the privatization of schooling really want to take public education in this direction, then let's debate what that means for the future of this nation's public school experiment.
At the beginning of President Obama's new administration that harbingers change and collaboration, a new national conversation is needed that brings all voices to the table. The dichotomization, polarization, simplification, and demonization must give way to a new, more inclusive public conversation that includes the voice of teachers and their communities on a grassroots level.
Lorraine Kasprisin is a professor in the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University. She is also president of the Educational Institute for Democratic Renewal and editor of "Journal of Educational Controversy."
As a public school teacher for nearly 30 years, I feel it is important to respond to Prof. Kasprisin's commentary about teacher's voices in the education debate. I fundamentally agree that teachers have been systematically ignored throughout the post NCLB debate over the future direction of American public education.
ReplyDeleteI think there may be several possible reasons to explain the lack of teacher input in the formation of local and national educational policy. First,the nature of the teaching profession in the late 20th and early 21st Century has significantly changed. Teachers are no longer viewed as the producers of knowledge; instead teachers have increasingly become technicians: they disseminate prepackage curriculum that is often disconnected from the reality that most students face in their lives outside of school.The deskilling of teaching is most noticeable in curriculum design. Lessons often fail to connect students wit real issues that exist in a local and global context. Inquiry, problem-solving, and critical thinking exercises are being squeezed from the curriculum, to be replaced by rote memorization, test prep, and a sterile curriulum that limits student choice and creativity. NCLB accelerated these trends which first emerged in 1983 with the Nation at Risk report. Curriculum is now intricately tied to state mandated standards, and a corporate curriculum industry that creates both instructional materials and the assessment mechanisms linked to a multinational "testing industry." The professional judgment of teachers in formulating curriculum and assessment has been compromised as a result.
This corporatized system has been mandated and legitimized by a professional political class that has little connection or direct experience with the mission or culture of public education, yet has the power, through elections and special interest money, to formulate an educational policy that takes on the appearance of promoting "excellence." Excellence in this sense is closely associated with rising test scores that have become the mantra of corporate America. Many administrators and superintendents either accept this model as "progressive" reform or are under intense pressure from state legislatures and the business community to follow the party line. Courageous teachers, principals or superintendents who speak out, do so with the trepidation that they may be disciplined, labeled as negative and not a "team player", or in some extreme instances, terminated.
Teachers are now in the " education business." Students are labeled clients, knowledge acquisition (or lack thereof)is defined in terms of efficiency and quantitative outcomes (test scores), while accountability is defined in terms of one's dedication to following the prescribed curriculum, and teaching to the test to raise test scores.
Many teachers, I think, abhor the corporatist model. Speaking out almost guarantees professional isolation. Administrators don't provide flexibility, favors, or professional advancement for troublemakers. Increasingly, many teachers face challenging classroom conditions. As state and federal governments increase mandates that are imposed on the classroom but fail to finance them, the professional demands of teachers increase. Stress becomes deeper as budget cuts continue, classrooms begin to overflow with students, and the art of teaching is overtaken by the science of teaching. Under these conditions, few teachers have the time or energy to follow macro policy formulation.
I would argue that teaching must develop a concerted, professional response to the neoliberal influences in schooling today. To a large degree this must be a grass roots movement. The teachers' unions have become discredited by both the right and left. The corporatist model has been a horrible failure. Our international "competitors" like Japan and China have begun to systematically reform their educational systems to reflect the increasing need in a globalized world to create, innovate, and imagine. Hopefully, the Obama administration will recognize that the U.S. greatest comparative advantage is to instill reform that promotes flexibility in schools, maximizes the energy and creativity of its students and teachers in the decision-making process, and works to end inequity based on race and class.