Our current
system of education is broken. This
shattered system of education was designed in the late eighteenth century by
Thomas Jefferson who referred to its purpose as “raking a few geniuses from the
rubbish!” Does that sound like a system
designed to serve all children? Of
course not because it was never designed to serve all children. And to this day
it is not designed to serve all children.
But how do we fix this problem?
Those supporting the public sector spew out all the problems with the current
testing fiasco, and are correct on many of the issues. However, their concern for the idiocy of the
test fades when the scores show in their favor.
Recent publications exclude some scores and use others to show how
public schools are doing better than charter.
The hypocrisy of that is outrageous.
The “test” is bad, no discussion!
“The system isn’t broken, the country is broken” they say in there
loudest, campaign style voice. Poverty
is the problem and only if that were fixed, everything would go well. This is not completely accurate. This is not
to say that the effects of poverty don’t hurt many kids. The insanity of it is the “either or”
mentality that drives the rhetoric. Yes,
fix the inequities in this country, but understand the system, designed during
slavery, is also broken. Don’t mold the
rhetoric to fit your agenda. When you
support the agenda of children, the whole truth will come out.
As they march and protest the closing of public schools, they are simply
preaching to the choir while leaving the perception that they are self serving
in their endeavor. Awareness is, of course, necessary and the speeches do
document what’s wrong with the current testing, but where is their plan for a
better system? The system of education is broken but it has been broken for a
long time. Long before the testing
fiasco, kids were ranked and sorted in the classroom, and drop outs were
acceptable. Then there were jobs for those who didn’t finish school. Now there aren’t!
And then we
have those who call themselves reformers but seem to lack knowledge in, among
other things, the human growth and development of the child. As they appear to be stuck in this race to
nowhere, they define proficiency as scoring within a range on an artificial
test, at the exact same time the test is given.
It doesn’t take much for educators to recognize this is simply wrong.
With more than 60 million kids in the school system with a range of skills and abilities from the severest of the
cognitive disabled children across the board to those “book learned” students
who are good test takers, what nut case would ever think everyone would
ever be in the same place on a standardized test on the same day the test is
given? It is not human nature for
all to be the same unless we want to develop robots or throw out all that are
slower.
And then we have kids who have roadblocks put in the
way of learning. They are most often the victims. Clearly when we look at all students, it is
easy to understand the reality that they blossom beautifully at different
rates. Adding to the normal range of
skills we add real obstacles that slow learning. According to Paul Tough, childhood stress
literally slows the brain. Together with
malnutrition, chronic illness and a wide range of obstacles, some kids (we
don’t know which ones) no matter how intelligent will be slow to achieve. Of course we want to eliminate the issues
caused by poverty, but that won’t happen soon.
Nor will kids all be the same soon.
Has anyone
ever told the “reformers” that whenever a child is first, it is
mathematically impossible not to have someone last. And the first go to the universities, and the
last go into the streets where they become invisible. We celebrate the winners and bleed the soul
out of the losers. And we have been
doing that for years, except, of course in Lake Wobegon where all the children
are above average.
More
important is the misconception that kids learn and demonstrate learning solely
with paper and pencil in hand. Learning
is personal and begins with the student’s background knowledge and expands from
there. To discover knowledge, is not to
regurgitate knowledge. The limited scope
of the artificial test uses a completely different mindset than does the real
quest for knowledge. And often there
isn’t one simple clear cut answer to one simple question.
With two
sides of the education argument entrenched in their artificial and irrational
beliefs, it’s time for a third side, the agenda of children,
To quote
historian James Anderson, “We are still trying to develop both the philosophy
as well as a system of education which really does respect the intelligence and
abilities of ordinary people.” Stay tuned
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