See you on the dance floor

The title of a recent article by Steven Rosenfeld caught my attention: "If We Don’t Act Now, Fascism Will Be on Our Doorstep, Says Yale Historian," (March 15, 2017).

I'm not happy about the fear meme embedded and critiqued in the article, i.e. prepare for the worst. It's as if we're coaxing it into existence.

This sentence from Rosenfeld's article also struck me: "Fascism says, disregard the evidence of your senses, disregard observation, embolden deeds that can’t be proven, don’t have faith in God but have faith in leaders, take part in collective myth of an organic national unity and so forth." Manuela Cadelli writes about this phenomenon in her article "Neoliberalism is a Species of Fascism."

I think the tilt towards fascism started before Drumph, but I really don't want to be right about that. In any case, language, and how we choose to create and experience the world, matters. 

I remember when Walter Mondale closed the 1984 (!) Democratic National Convention by repeatedly calling out for Ronald Reagan. He was supposedly pulling together a fractured party by railing against a common Republican enemy (i.e. President Ronald Reagan), and all that we heard on TV and radio, and read in newspapers, and felt in the universe, was a loud and clear invocation of Ronald Reagan's name. We lost before we started, and I wonder if HRC et al. did the same thing in 2016.

Should we focus on what we want, rather than what we don't want? Do we amplify democracy or echo dark foreboding? What's the implication for the world that we want to live in?

See you on the march, at the grille, or on the dance floor.

re: Teacher observations have been a waste of time and money

The US is the wealthiest country on the planet, and Mark Dynarski wants to implicate teachers for low test scores.

Mark Dynarski gets it wrong with teacher evaluation (Brookings, Dec. 8, 2016).

1. Mark Dynarski does not understand assessment: "The crucial question is whether students are learning. To answer that, we need some measure of learning: a test."
   
   Tests do not measure student learning. Tests measure a student's ability, or choice, to achieve high test scores.
   
   Alternatively, students benefit from assessments that are designed to help them show what they have learned, from their own perspective. Crafty educators can use data, both qualitative and quantitative, from student-driven assessments to adjust instructional strategies to meet students' needs.
   
   
2. The author does not understand science: "Teacher evaluation systems need a stronger scientific basis."
   
   Quantitative data from high stakes standardized tests does not constitute "science." Science would consider a systemic, holistic approach, and then isolate variables. And there are at least as many variables in a classroom as there are students.
   
   Individual students are too varied to prove (or disprove) a teacher's effectiveness. Trends or patterns within one classroom with 25 students -- or across several classrooms with 150 students -- in the same year, or over several years, SHOULD vary based on students' interests and needs, and the extent to which a teacher is supported by her/his school.
   
   There are also too many variables before, during, and after school to link teacher effectiveness with "objective" test scores.
   
   
3.  Perhaps the author does not understand inequity: "We need a more solid research and measurement foundation about what aspects of teaching improve learning."
   
   When children arrive at school well-rested, well-fed, and feeling safe and curious, well-supported teachers can do wonders. Teachers are life-long learners, and we can always enrich our curricular, instructional, and assessment strategies. Fair-enough.
   
   However, students who are proximate to the violence of poverty exhibit enormous amounts of stress that they bring to schools. These students need equity, i.e. unique in-school services that can help them want to do well in school. And it would be really helpful if our society acted to address the upstream source of poverty, i.e. income inequality.
   Data from The Spirit Level shows that even wealthy American children also suffer from the fallout of an unhealthy society.
   
   Among the wealthiest 23 countries on the planet, those with the biggest income inequality (i.e. the U.S.) have the highest rates of depression, mental illness, teen pregnancy, incarceration rates, drug abuse, obesity, and violence, and low educational "achievement" rates (see Fig. 1 below).
   
   Fig. 1: Educational scores are higher in more equal rich countries. - The Spirit Level
   
   
4. The author does not understand pedagogy: "We are spending billions to little effect because we do not know enough about what we are looking for."
   
   I know what I am looking for; I'm sure it varies among colleagues -- and I'm OK with that. I think that effective teachers:
   a. cultivate a love of life-long learning
   b. promote critical and creative literacy
   c. foster democratic civic engagement
   
   If these outcomes come close to what we are looking for within the profession, then we should ask teachers to design their own professional learning plans so that they become more effective at realizing such aims.
   If students come to school and aren't ready to learn, then we need to support students and educators by creating and sustaining equitable in-school conditions.
   Focusing on education as a means to redress poverty will help to a point: but it will not address the source of inequities, i.e. income inequality. Therefore, we need to support students and educators by creating and sustaining equitable out-of-school conditions.
   
5. The author has a point: "We need a more solid research and measurement foundation about what aspects of teaching improve learning."
   
   We need hybrid teaching roles so that more teachers can conduct meaningful research and advocate for effective systemic strategies that promote student engagement.

 

 

American Education Week and Neoliberal Market Efficiencies

Founded in 1921, American Education Week was designed to inform "the public of the accomplishments and needs of the public schools and to secure the cooperation and support of the public in meeting those needs." 17 years later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed "the teachers and patrons of American schools" about the relationship between democracy and education.

As American Education Week is once more observed throughout the schools of the United States, opportunity again is afforded to evaluate the part which our schools play in the preservation and promotion of democratic life.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education (Sep. 27, 1938).

Roosevelt's comments, though brief, provide sharp contrast with the writings of Joanne Weiss, who served as President Obama's director of Race to the Top and then Secretary Duncan's Chief of Staff. Weiss actually sees teachers as passive recipients of education reform -- to be fed data -- rather than co-constructors of democratic practices that engage students, families, and colleagues. From Weiss' Harvard Business Review (HBR) post:

It will make sense for researchers to mine data to learn which materials and teaching strategies are effective for which students – and then feed that information back to students, teachers, and parents (Mar. 31, 2011).

Weiss' comments reflect the notion that teachers are passive observers within their own profession. She assumes that teachers do not, in fact, do research everyday on what works and what doesn't work for children. And when we place her comments within ED's push for the adoption of common standards across the U.S. via Race to the Top, her framework becomes so much more dangerous. From her HBR post:

The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.

Some may note that Weiss' post was from 2011, and that her views might have "evolved," in part, due to the good work of ED's diverse, passionate, and caring colleagues. Yet with such a Machiavellian view of education, I wonder how Weiss even ended up in ED in the first place.

I'm not interested in gnarling Weiss' reputation.

I am interested in engaging colleagues in a critique of the anti-democratic practices that sometimes pass for a "kinder and gentler" neoliberalism. A neoliberalism that sees children as a revenue stream, and teachers as an obstacle to market efficiencies. The threat to our democracy is real, and the saboteurs are in the room.

Sometimes, nuance is not good enough.

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