In the
spring of 1979 I made a decision. I was
a freshman in college who typically changed my idea for a career path about
every two weeks. Going into college I
was convinced that I would be a lawyer.
I had been involved in politics at home and thought that I was going to
save the world. However, on a beautiful
spring day I saw a bulletin board that advertised an information session on the
steps a student could take to become a teacher.
My school was a liberal arts college in the truest sense. No major offered was preparation for a
specific vocation. Unlike most
universities, there was no college of education, no education degree. I found that I could take specific courses to
get certified to teach, but there was no credit for a minor or a major. My major was tracking toward studio art. Drawing and painting were natural for
me. What I began to learn was that these
skills were also a part of me. I had
taken a sculpture class my first semester and was taking a class on color my
second term. Through a career in education,
I discovered I could be both practical and pursue an intellectual course of
study. Yes, art requires intellect.
Over the
course of my time in college I made a significant change in my direction toward
adulthood. I made a decision to become a
teacher and I stuck with it. I never
turned back. I was told I would have a job at the university should I choose in
the spring of my junior year. I turned
that job down because I knew I wanted to teach.
After a difficult first year of teaching I was offered a job at a
conference center, but I turned that down.
I wanted to teach. After a few
years in the profession, I discovered that I wanted to teach well. Two years into my career I began to work on a
masters in education that focused on art.
Again, I discovered the artistic process to be a natural outlet. My painting professor encouraged me to take a
year off just to paint and work toward an MFA.
Aside from the practical reality of paying for this year, I decided that
I wanted to teach. I did not paint for a
year toward an MFA. By the time I
finished this Masters degree I was merely dabbling in the arts. I had no ambition toward a career in the
arts. I wanted to teach. I enjoyed working with students and loved
imparting a passion for the arts.
My tenure
in education has paralleled the so-called age of education reform. The spring of my first year as a teacher the
Reagan administration published a report entitled “A Nation at Risk.” For years, many in public education sensed
that there was an undercurrent of sentiment to attack and demean the public
schools as an institution. This report
made those fears a reality. We wouldn’t
wish this system on our enemies, the report said. For the next decade the authors of “A Nation at
Risk” floundered as they sought a way to justify defunding public schools. Through out the 1980s idealists, such as me,
pretended that the ongoing dialogue resulting from the report was an
opportunity to reintroduce the education ideals first articulated by
philosophers such as John Dewey in the Progressive Era. We had discussions about
the true nature of the classroom, site based management and authentic portfolio
assessments. At last we could throw off
the yoke of bureaucratic implementation.
However, the second attack on the
legitimacy of the Public Schools arrived in the 1990s in what became known as
the “standards movement.” What
historically had been referred to as “the basics” now had a faux intellectual
premise. We have to have standards for
students to achieve. Correct? What is the purpose of a course of study
without “high expectations?” The next
logical step was to introduce tools that would measure progress and tell us
that public educators lacked high standards.
Prior to
the introduction of standardized tests as a tool to judge the efficacy of a
school or teacher, normative tests were used to diagnose a student’s
progress. As we moved through the 1990s
in this country, voices began to question the practical application of these
tests by claiming that teachers were not sophisticated enough to use the
data. Public education had a notorious
reputation for ignoring research altogether, many claimed. We needed instruments that forced the schoolhouse,
principally teachers, to pay attention and develop teaching strategies that
actually brought results. To get to the
bottom of the “crisis” in learning, states and districts began to jettison
curricula and focus on literacy and math.
The justification seemed logical.
Statistics clearly show that if a child is not reading fluently by third
grade, then they would eventually drop out of school. The drop out rate was so high, many argued,
that we had to get reading trends corrected.
A reading test would clearly define the problem, give teachers a clear
understanding of student deficits and, thus, provide a pathway to student
success. Seems clear enough. We have lacked academic focus in education
policy and now we have it. Let’s teach
kids how to read. Now for the more
nefarious components of this focus:
There were
many forces acting on public education in the 1990s. Since the 1960’s major cities had struggled
to integrate schools. The societal
resistance to these efforts, specifically busing, was becoming evident through
the growing segregation of neighborhoods.
As families moved to suburbs or toward private schools, educators who
continued to desire a model for desegregation began to seek other means to
achieve an integrated society while keeping communities participating. Magnet schools became a popular strategy and
a school governance concept independent of traditional public education
bureaucracy, charters, began to get traction.
Among progressive thinkers, charters would represent a vehicle for
experimentation with successful instructional strategies adopted by school
districts. Those tired of the imposition
of bureaucratic education policy began to see charters as a means to break away
and reinforce the will of individual school communities. By the 2000’s there was evidence of a profit
motive for charter investment that significantly changed the justification for
such schools and represented a motive to defund public schools as a government
entity.
As a
teacher in the 1980s, I lived in a bubble that, looking back, was ideal. Part of the ongoing dialogue about education
recognized that teacher pay was a significant contributor to teacher
attrition. States and localities began
to experiment with a concept of merit pay as an incentive to keep and reward
teachers. As the country got out of a
deep recession in the mid-eighties, revenue became available and teacher pay
began to grow again. The difference in
past efforts was that step pay increases would no longer be the focus, but
performance would somehow be determined and rewarded. At first, these experiments included a
profound increase in classroom observations, but this was found to be
cumbersome and expensive. My recent
masters, along with a substantial bonus earned as a result of good
observations, meant that I had more disposable income. I later began to realize the 1980s were a
good time for my chosen subject, art, as well.
Funding was more than adequate and I was encouraged to expand my
curriculum. The direction of public
education policy at that time was moving toward local school control. Teachers began to experience more
intellectual options. Reform, initially,
showed promise for the classroom. Then
someone discovered standards.
As I moved
through the 1990s, and “Standards based Education” became the growing mantra,
curricular restrictions began to be put in place. In 1996, I worked in a magnet high school
that had a medical component. My
artistic and instructional strengths were in representational art and I
proposed an anatomical drawing course for our magnet students. There was significant interest in this fusing
of art and science from both the student body and the faculty. All of my art classes prior to this proposal
were at capacity so I believed this course would represent a good use of
resources. The district turned this
proposal down twice. The justification
for rejection was simple: The district offered too many classes already. Too many high schools had distinctive offerings
that did not translate to graduation requirements for other schools in the
district if a student transferred to another school. The stated policy of the district became
standardization of curriculum. Reduce
curricular offerings to homogenize the high schools in the district. Make them all the same. It didn’t matter that different schools
served diverse communities.
There has
always been a strong anti-intellectual current evident in the organization of
the public schools. We frequently heard
this articulated as the “3 Rs”. Part of
this was the result of a vocational justification for the public schools that
saw a purpose in developing a competent work force. The evolution of the standards movement in
the 1990s gave justification to the vocational bias for schooling. The great irony became that the standards
movement would actually result in a restricted view of vocational justification
that has reduced job preparation. As an
art teacher, I discovered that this meant less opportunity for application and
more time spent on passive theory. In
other words, teach reading and math while avoiding opportunities for critical thinking
and problem solving.
At the end
of the 1990s, I left the classroom to become an assistant principal. The standards movement was firmly in
place. Standardized tests were now being
used to judge schools thus acting as a stick to force improvement. However, it became evident that these
assessments were not getting the desired results.
As superintendents trumpeted the gains seen in grades 3 -8,
thus justifying a focus on reading and math in primary education, the high
school results were stagnant. School
boards and the public began to ask why.
As an administrator in a middle school I saw the reason to be
obvious. The 3rd grade
through 8th grade reading and math tests were rigged. In the state of North Carolina, where I
worked, the threshold for being at “grade level” was below a normative standard
of 20%. If a student could read better
than 18 out of 100 students in the grade level, then that student was reading
at the level expected for that grade.
However, once a student performing at the minimal level entered high
school that student could not handle the content covered in high school
courses. This practice became common
throughout the country with the federal legislation popularly penned “No Child
Left Behind”. Every child miraculously
was going to be at “grade level” by 2014 or there would be financial
penalties. It was left up to states to
define the grade level standard. Wanting
to avoid funding cuts, states naturally began to develop tests that
demonstrated proficiency that was in fact below grade level. As an administrator overseeing these tests,
the state policy became obvious. Lie to
the public about actual student performance by using assessments that required
little actual ability.
There were
significant political and economic forces at work once “No Child Left Behind”
became policy. Throughout the history of
public schools, financial resources were subject to economic conditions. The public schools often faced dramatic cuts
during economic downturns and would see increased revenues to try and catch up
during good times. The economic influence took another turn with
the institution of “No Child Left Behind.”
States did not have the means to develop quality assessments on their
own. A competitive testing industry grew
out of this need. The practical
execution of these tests also became more reliable as computing technology
improved. However, only about 40% of
curriculum and instruction could be judged based on this testing process. Although some states and districts tried to
develop assessments for courses beyond a standardized curriculum, this was
found to be expensive and tests unreliable.
Further justification to reduce curricular offerings was now
justified. With the advent to corporate
testing, there was now a profit and efficiency motive added to justify the
“Standards Based Curriculum.” As the
standards bias took hold, judgment about performance became systemic and no
longer valued the individual school community.
Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists began to influence education
policy in terms of corporate economic justification. Education reform was now being defined in
terms of efficiency, not efficacy. The
educational testing environment now was a growth industry that justified its
existence in terms of principal and teacher accountability with no entity
holding this corporate culture accountable for the accuracy or quality of the
instruments used to harshly judge schools.
Numbers reported were rarely vetted through media and simply used to
demean public schools. No one bothered
to see if these tests were actually measuring student performance. The schools simply reported numerical
results. As this efficiency for the sake
of profit became the priority, schools were closed, teachers dismissed and
funding was allocated toward the profits.
It didn’t matter if students actually knew the material.
When I
entered teaching in 1982, it was frequently reported that half of the public
school teachers in this country would leave the profession by the fifth year of
teaching. Many researchers would claim
that most of this attrition included the best teachers. In 1982 there was little data available to
support this claim. Some would say that
our introduction of standards data verified this as fact. The variety and inconsistent quality of tests
used across the country makes this claim dubious. As an elementary school principal I can
anecdotally report that teachers are leaving the profession. The conditions in the classroom have gotten
worse as strict instructional standards have reduced teacher input on curricula
and taken time away from actual instruction.
The loss of tenure for principals have given districts and states
leverage to enforce particular instructional practices that have little or no
research validity. Private schools are
now finding it easier to hire teachers away from public schools as teacher pay
has stagnated, taking away the once competitive advantage public schools
traditionally held when seeking candidates.
The poor conditions now so apparent in the classroom are having an
impact on teacher preparation programs as more and more universities report
dramatic decreases in education majors. As teacher shortages become more evident
across the country opportunities for students lessen.
As teaching
becomes less a call to service and more an expectation for random results, the allure
of teaching loses its luster. The
economic justification brought on by the corporate influence and narrow
institutional definitions of learning now creates an impression of teaching as
mission work. The public investment in
such organizations as Teach for America implies a perception that teachers are not important. While recent policy pretends to acknowledge
the significant impact a good teacher has on a student’s academic growth, the
practice of government is to invest less in teaching. The best and brightest students are typically the
most astute. They see the stress placed
upon teachers and this acts as a disincentive to get into the profession.
A single
classroom represents a culture of learning that is only limited by the
enlightened nature of the teacher. A
school, therefore, becomes the community that nurtures such enlightenment
through resources selected for that classroom.
This is why the best schools, public, charter or independent,
thrive. The evolving focus of district,
state and federal policy on economic incentives that reward private interests over
the needs of individual schools gives little reason for thinkers to teach. While the “Standards Movement” has resulted
in an entrepreneurial energy, the investment has focused on efficient delivery
of content over student opportunity.
Restricted curricula, stagnant teacher pay, and greater investment in
inefficient technologies that have marked this three-decade era of “reform”
have left teachers and schools out of the equation.
I have no
regrets about my choice in avocation. I
continue to be energized by the relationships I develop with students, teachers
and greater school communities. However,
the institutional forces I encounter often create a fatigue that is deep and
counter productive. During this age of
reform my ongoing work with educators, from instructional assistants to
superintendents, exposes me to a vast array of individuals who believe in their
work and want to provide meaningful opportunity for students. However, as educators, we continue to be
blind to the unintended consequences that come from decisions that ignore local
school needs for the one best solution that will magically transform our
schools. We have bought into the mantra of leadership
as a character trait as opposed to developing “discriminating followership” as
a necessary tool for initiative and success.
We have assumed that the business mindset is a virtue that can lift the
circumstances of all, ignoring the selfish limitations that naturally exist
with economic incentives. The motivation for education policy over the past
three decades has ignored the true focus of our work. It has assumed that efficient narrow curricular
focus can best serve the needs of students while ignoring the fact that
learning is typically inefficient and has many foci. We have ignored the organic cellular nature
of humanity through a systemic industrial approach to learning. Like the pairing young idealist I was 37 years ago, I continue to see that teachers simply want to learn, engage and
inspire.
