Category Archives: American Education Wars

What Is the Diagnosis?

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As a veterinarian, when presented with a sick animal, the first step in problem solving is a good history. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. For example, in a crisis, you skip the history taking and go directly to doing what’s necessary to save a life.

The objective of a good history is to gain clarity as to what happened that may have contributed to or created the problem. A good history guides us in deciding the proper tests to run — always with the goal of making the correct diagnosis.

In education reform, we have been “reforming” at a steady clip for over 30 years. The patient —the public education system—is not cured after being given prescription after prescription resulting in little to no lasting improvement. The main diagnosis? The standards aren’t “high” enough and the tests aren’t good enough.

Let’s look back.

Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education reported that we were “A Nation at Risk” and since then the general public has believed that standards were both the problem and the solution. So we set our course for reforms based on standards and testing.

Leaders declared a crisis in education. But In making a diagnosis at that time, findings from the early 1900’s and mid 1930’s about standardization of instruction were ignored. Let’s pick up where we left off.

We misdiagnosed both the problem and what that famous report said.

It is important that we know this because when we look at the patient today, the initial problems still exist but our misdiagnosis and the wrong cocktail of prescriptions have made the patient in some ways worse.

Because the country is addicted to the treatment —dependent on tests to tell us how the patient is doing — we are monitoring our system to the brink of death. Therefore, it’s time to thoroughly re-evaluate the patient.

A wise old vet school professor once advised,

“if you see a patient back three times for the same thing, you need to get a new set of eyes on the problem. You’re missing something.”

The history? Another set of eyes looked at the problem and their diagnosis was quite different. The Sandia National Laboratories gave good explanations concerning both the interpretation of test scores and the proposed (now in action) “reforms.”

Censorship is as detrimental as a lie.

Censorship is as detrimental as a lie.

Some powerful people silenced the report.

#TruthBeTold ? We’ll only hear the truth when we demand it.

My prescription to revive the dying patient is this:

  • Demand Congress remove the federal mandate for yearly standardized testing  under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) /(ESSA) Every Student Succeeds Act and replace it with grade-span checks on the system at 4th,8th, and 12th grades only in addition to the random use of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
  • Reopen the conversation about national standards. Is it what we want or do we want national guidelines (benchmarks) around which we tailor standards to fit our local needs? That discussion needs to happen in the open.
  • Let’s get new eyes on this issue and start with a full and truthful history. Dig up the Sandia findings.

Let’s clearly hear the truth.

Airing the Dirty Laundry

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It rained this morning in the high-mountain desert region of Idaho so that makes it the perfect day to air out the house. First, I’m going to finish airing my grievances with the “Super Supers” presentation.

As most of us commoners know — for leaders to do something we want, they have to believe it is their idea.

So as I listened to Dr. Eric Smith tell a “common” Core story that the Common Core State Initiative hatched in Chicago, I was struck with a notion. What if these people honestly believe this WAS their idea?

I had attended a local Common Core dog-and-pony show and one administrator there enthusiastically believed she had been in on this “state-led” adventure – because Mr. Tom Luna (Idaho’s Chief for Change) had brought her along to… you guessed it…Chicago.

And listening to Dr. Smith tell the same story in his easy, down-home manner really makes it believable.

You can read the Chicago story for yourselves by scrolling down to CORE BEGINNINGS in this Huffington Post article. But it doesn’t tell the whole story. No one seems to be able to do that.

You will hear it told that there was help from some “simultaneous efforts by outside groups.”

Right. Coincidence. And in their efforts to be “credited” with the Core, one group put out their plan ahead of the rest.

No coincidence who was on that planning “committee.” It was once called the Coalition for Student Achievement and none other than the Common Core architect himself, David Coleman, was there. They produced their paper, got their letter to the Obama administration, and got in the news by April 16, 2009.

They met in D.C. in “early” April 2009. “They” work fast.

Oh, but wait; there was the earlier Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano’s part in the Common Core story. She is credited with the “Innovation America” paper written in 2007 and low-and-behold, David Coleman and Jason Zimba joined the effort.

“Coleman and Zimba went to work on a seminal paper for the Carnegie Foundation that called for “math and science standards that are fewer, clearer, higher.” Directors at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation saw the paper and were impressed by its ideas. They funded some of Coleman’s work — and eventually dropped as much as $75 million on what would become the Common Core.” HuffPost

From 2007 to 2009, it appears that David Coleman carried the ball to D.C. through his Student Achievement Partners -to- the Coalition for Student Achievement meetings …. but wait, there are the airport meetings …

This “story” gets better. As Eric Smith explained to the Boise crowd: It was just this casual conversation (I paraphrase because no video yet) — “hey, why should we redo algebra in Florida and you redo it in Kentucky? Algebra is algebra. Let’s work together.” And we were “taking notes on napkins.” Really? You didn’t need to; Coleman had you covered.

But the show must go on … in Chicago…

“At one point, Eric Smith, then the head of Florida’s schools, asked CCSSO and NGA to send around an agreement that would allow states to opt into the process of creating new standards.

Lucky for Smith, that document already existed. [Chris] Minnich and [Dane] Linn passed around a “Memorandum of Agreement” they had written hoping that governors and schools chiefs would sign on. The memo committed states to participate in the process of developing common learning standards, but specified that the standards would remain voluntary.”

“A few months later, the project got a sudden boost from the federal government.” HuffPost

Surprise, surprise?

“[Terry ] Holliday, the Kentucky schools chief, said. No one from the federal government attended that meeting, he added, emphasizing that the adoption of the Core was, at least initially, a state-led effort.”  HuffPost

That infamous meeting in Chicago was on April 17, 2009. And it was reported, “A representative of the Education Department was slated to attend the Chicago meeting.”

There must have been a bouncer at the door.

“So NGA and CCSSO representatives lobbied the Education Department several times to get the Common Core standards adoption requirement cut from Race to the Top guidelines. The feds didn’t exactly back off, but they did remove the term “Common Core” from the guidelines, requiring instead that states adopt “college- and career-ready standards.” The administration also allocated $350 million in stimulus cash to fund the development of tests aligned to the Common Core.” HuffPost

Well, at least we know that the government was good at delivering the mail. The coalition’s letter must have gone through.

So much for Rahm Emanuels Quiet Revolution and as far as his statement that “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” that is still playing out for education reform. We could come up with a “Fair Shot Agenda.” But no liars allowed in the meeting…so…

Which “leaders” are telling the truth and which have joined the masters of deception?

Until proven otherwise, I’d say the whole damned bunch is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. This is disgusting. Shame on them! Either they are dishonest or just too damned dumb to be leading!

“Our stimulus dollars” went into the hands and pockets of some already well-to-do people while the very schools that we say we want to turnaround are doing without teaching supplies and proper building maintenance. Meanwhile, the public system is being dismantled — parents being told to go homeschool if they don’t like the tests and wish to opt out.

Ladies and gentlemen, the old saying about liars led us to believe that when your laundry is soiled with lies, your pants will catch on fire. I wish.

If only it was so easy to tell.

If only it was so easy to tell.    Source:tnvalleytalks.hoop.la

And to all you Common Core supporters out there: look beyond the end of your noses and beyond your own classroom doors and windows. Look into the future and imagine this system “they” are creating. You are enabling them.

You are selling us out. These are not just standards.

I’d personally prefer to talk about the alternatives for helping struggling schools. I’d rather see us do the right thing.

Professional standards of practice and trust in the institution of public education can’t be built on a rotten foundation or one of sand.

The sun is now shining. #TruthBeTold

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P.S. My original research on Common Core looked at some of the official players on the development team. What I didn’t know at the time I wrote this blog was how INFLUENTIAL the SMART OPTIONS group was. The April dates seem confusing but it was that confusion that made me look further.

I’m not here to convince people what they should think. I’m here to encourage people to look beyond what they first see, seek the truth….really look for it…before taking a firm stance. And think about more than just their own immediate circumstances. Think about the future.

New Testing Makes No Sense

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Two “Super Supers” came to Idaho to bring us their wisdom. It is always good to listen to the voices of experience; it helps clarify things. It certainly threw light on some issues for me.

Dr. David P. Driscoll (MA) and Dr. Eric Smith (FL) were brought to Idaho by the Albertson Foundation, which has been financially supporting standards development in Idaho since 1997.

In describing their visit here, the Supers indicated that they were given some of our state data to review. It showed a couple of things that many across the country have known for years; we have a lack of consistency in the quality of our schools and those schools that show up on the bottom of the performance pile tend to do so repeatedly. This we have known.

These experts came to their conclusions by reviewing the data they were given.

Meanwhile, some of us have lived the reality, shouted it from the rooftops, and been brushed aside — because our observations were anecdotal, we can’t do our own research, attempt to draw logical conclusions from data, or we didn’t graduate from the right colleges? (I have no idea what the answer to that question is but Harvard was mentioned more than a couple of times during the evening.)

Anyway, now because of The Common Core …

“You will see for the first time in history, millions and millions being tested on the same level,” Driscoll said. “We will have strong standards and strong assessments and finally we’ll know what we need to work on.”

… O.K., so here is the point where I revert to my upbringing and talk straight.

Dude, you just said we had the data to pinpoint the problem schools, why do you need another set of standards and another new test to point at the same old schools that were already identified? We already knew! This is EXACTLY what we did when we started with this whole standards-based accountability scheme that became the No Child Left Behind disaster.

“We” (as in we observant people) never NEEDED to prove it again. I walked away from this mess before – briefly around 2001 – by giving into the idea that “well, if ‘they’ must prove it one more time, one more way, well…O.K.”

But not again! NO. STOP.

Listen to ALL the Reasons Why.

Listen to ALL the Reasons Why.

The principles, policies, and practices we have right now were created by the very same people now saying that this time they have it “right.” How can they?

Those still pushing the standards and assessment theory of reform aren’t making sense. They say The Common Core should be used to compare to other states. Why? We already can compare, contrast, and deduce which schools need help….S.O.S. Send help.

Dr. Smith did give mention to Ronald Edmonds work. I’d advice he listens to himself and to Edmonds original research. Edmonds noted that schools he investigated — which were high-poverty, high-“minority” schools that had successfully improved beyond “expectations” — all saw the local school as the focus of analysis and intervention.

Given the tools and the chance, we local yokels can pull on our boots and “kick” … We need to start by kicking some you-know-what out of the way!

The “experts” got it wrong.

P.S. Mr. Rodgers got it right.

Walk the Talk

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After listening to two former commissioners of education Dr. Eric Smith of Florida and Dr. David Driscoll hired by Massachusetts after the “Grand Bargain,” I think we all —including these two leaders— need to step back a moment and listen to ourselves.

Since these two had the stage, let’s listen to them first.

The talk — The purpose of our public system is to provide opportunities to all kids. The walk — standards and measuring make the difference.

The talk — Libraries and librarians have proven their worth. The walk — standards and measuring make the difference; be data driven.

The talk — Good parenting and providing students with essential services when needed is a good thing. The walk — standards and measuring make the difference and we need to tone down the political rhetoric.

The talk — Time on task is important and we should understand how we are using our teaching time. The walk — standards and measuring make the difference; we will know how Common Core works in a couple of years.

The talk — Research is important. The walk — those that adopted Common Core should have read them before doing so. There should have been a process.

The talk — We need to get away from teaching to the test. The walk — STAY the course with Common Core and Smarter Balance testing.

Oh, one more…..The talk — Massachusetts is doing great on international tests. The walk — well, that’s the problem. How many students walked away never to be subjected to being measured again?

For me, the question left unanswered from listening to these two was; if Massachusetts is being held up as the gold standard of reform efforts and they “improved” their schools using tests only in 4th, 8th, and 10th grades, why are we still recommending standardize, high-stakes testing in every grade every year?

Welcome to my little corner of the world complete with reminders of all the solutions we should embrace. :-)

Welcome to my little corner of the world complete with reminders of all the solutions we should embrace. 🙂

More to consider tomorrow…and yes, I do remind myself with notes that I too need to hear myself.

Twisting the Truth

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“The nation’s governors developed Common Core.” That is the Bloomberg View on the development of The Core. Readership? Probably pretty widespread!

And the history of Common Core is being told in this U.S. News & World Report and elsewhere as having been started by former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. Her (?) 2008 report is purported to be what has led the way ever since. After that bite of information, this article depends on Rick Hess (resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute) and Dane Linn (VP of the Business Roundtable, Education and Workforce Committee) to tell the story.

Web of Deception

Web of Deception

The article then leads its readers to believe that Achieve (a Bill Gates created organization) stepped in to help. Fact: “they” were in it all along!

And low and behold, “It was decided that ‘the key to advancing any of these recommendations [made by the governors] was to start with the standards,’ Linn says.”

The rest of the story, as told in this article, paints a picture of the arduous work of creating these new “benchmarked” standards by the main stakeholder groups —union and non-union members holding hands— to produce our wondrous “new” standards. The backlash to Common Core is painted as purely political.

The events that unfolded with the unveiling of Common Core and its tests “served as fodder for the federal-overreach debate.”

The real truth; right in the Memorandum of Agreement, which governors and school chiefs signed, it states (page 3):

In particular, the federal government can provide key financial support for this effort in developing a common core of state standards and in moving toward common assessments, such as through the Race to the Top Fund authorized in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Further, the federal government can incentivize this effort through a range of tiered incentives, such as providing states with greater flexibility in the use of existing federal funds, supporting a revised state accountability structure, and offering financial support for states to effectively implement the standards. Additionally, the federal government can provide additional long-term financial support for the development of common assessments, teacher and principal professional development, other related common core standards supports, and a research agenda that can help continually improve the common core over time. Finally, the federal government can revise and align existing federal education laws with the lessons learned from states’ international benchmarking efforts and from federal research.”

 

Federal involvement appears to be dictated by the Common Core agreement. Governors signed it.

So when did The Core start? 2007 with Bill Gates, the most influential person in education reform policy? 2008 with the governors (and Gates funded Achieve)?

Was it “just” accelerated in 2009 with a group of high-powered “thinkers” getting together in D.C. to produce Smart Options and deciding that “priority 1” is to develop common American standards with our Recovery Act dollars?

At the moment, the truth is our reality. The rest of the story is this — The copyright on Common Core standards are privately held by two D.C. unions of bureaucrats. The National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief States School Officers (CCSSO) are nothing more than that – D.C. unions of government officials with no responsibility for results and with very murky transparency as to the flow of money.

The Chief architect of Common Core – Mr. David Coleman – sat on the Smart Options committee and directs the College Board (SAT testing)….There are lots of private dollar connections….D.C. insiders pushed The Common Core…..The plans have always been to use federal law to make this “work.” Question is; whom is it working for?

#WorkForMe

America, wake up! ———–This isn’t about “just standards.”

If we want national standards for our public schools that prepare students for college, isn’t it public colleges and universities that are most aware of the knowledge and skills gaps they are seeing in their students? Wouldn’t it make more sense to assign them to the task of helping us improve the education of our public school children? Won’t gaps in student preparation differ in degree and areas of concern depending on the current quality of education in a given location?

Run this by me again, why are we redoing the whole system and gearing it towards another one-size-fits –all “fix”? Twisted thinking, me thinks.

I CARE

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Getting ready for the Labor Day weekend, I found myself scurrying through a grocery store parking lot where I happen to spot a nail. I blasted past it. About four strides later, I stopped myself. What was I thinking? Well, I wasn’t.

That nail was poised to wreak havoc on someone’s day and I could prevent that.

I backtracked, found the nail, and threw it away. My only regret; I didn’t save it as a reminder.

There are always going to be those that don’t care enough about others to lift a finger to help. But those of us that do care — that isn’t who we are. We were put on this earth for a reason. Our shoulders might get tired of carrying our load but there will come a day when our hearts will feel light and we will rest knowing we did all we could to make things better.

Until that day, we must fight like hell for what we believe to be the right path! We must stop the damage being done in the name of education reform. It is #NotAcceptable .

Learning should not be drudgery for young children. It shouldn’t be creating stress for young families. Common Core is doing exactly that. It is #NotAcceptable .

No Child Left Behind is the federal law anchoring a national belief in test-based “accountability.” It didn’t work; it won’t work. It is a decade long failure and for it to continue to be the education law of the land is #NotAcceptable .

Today, and everyday, I need to ask myself, what can I do to prevent problems in the lives of our youngest Americans and their families? #ICare

Start by Caring

Start by Caring

Who Cares?

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A selling point my House representative makes to his throngs of followers is that he is “a protector of the people against the tyranny of their government.” So why hasn’t he lifted a finger, or even lent an ear, to fight against the tyranny of incessantly testing young children?

Why do we still have yearly testing mandated by federal law?

Did these tests improve education? The federal mandate began in 2001 with No Child Left Behind. Results?

If yearly testing is so important an ingredient in school improvement, why do we need it dictated by law? If these tests are so valuable and wonderful, won’t market forces be enough to drive their use?

I’m in Idaho. Our political leaders here strongly believe in the power of the free-market. They don’t believe the federal government should be involved in education. You would think they would be willing to fight to end the testing mandates of No Child Left Behind. You would think.

Did Representative Raul Labrador care enough about education to put any effort into getting rid of No Child Left Behind?

Listening to Idaho Representative Raul Labrador last night at his town hall meeting, I was struck by his words. He said he believes in keeping promises, in telling the truth, and how ignoring a constituent is never O.K.! REALLY?

I’ve been trying for three years to get this man to talk about education. My question this time was, if re-elected, would he work to end the federal mandate for yearly testing? He dodged it, again.

But the really, really sad thing about last night was the crowd. Big room, lots of people — a sea of gray hair indicating the Social Security/Medicare Generation (I’m not saying that begrudgingly. just sayin’). Young people were sparse.

I struck up a light conversation with the gentleman next to me before the show started. Afterwords, I asked him if he thought I had gotten an answer to my question. He quickly responded “No.”

BUT, is it really too much to ask to have representatives who truly care about public schools and the children in them?

But it was what this man said next that was my take-home message. He said, “I don’t know anything about No Child Left Behind and I don’t care.”

 

Research Made Me Do It

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“Research” can be defined as a careful investigation to discover facts…and so my Common Core saga began.

Asked if I would write an article about the Common Core standards, I hesitated because, already having boxes full of “standards,” I had purposely avoided stepping into that pile of manure again. But, I agreed to look at the topic closer and if I felt comfortable about my knowledge of the issue, I’d write something.

I began with the original “development team.” I looked deeply at the people deciding who to focus on based on their current title and place of employment. I looked into individuals that obviously worked for the education industry versus those working for public institutions. With 135 members, I had to narrow my search and this is about PUBLIC education, which is based on a public trust.

Six hours after beginning, I stood up from my desk with dry burning eyes and shaky knees.

It is not alright in my mind to have data collection, mining, and information systems specialists that already hold (therefore control) our information for national energy and defense systems to also hold student information and be part of developing “THE” standards upon which the WHOLE public education system will evolve.

AND, too many of these people also sat on boards of directors for the too-big-to-fail financiers. Recall – THEY DID FAIL! These people’s failures wreaked havoc on our lives and they ended up sitting on this “education reform” development team?

I can’t give you the full six hours of findings but here is a sampling.

YOU DECIDE: Developed by a coalition of state governments? NOTE: Those not familiar with the influential in education “reform” might want to follow a map!

The Original Development Team included:
David Coleman – president of Student Achievement Partners (see also Jason Zimba for connections) president of the College Board and McKinsey & Co. consultant

Phil Daro of America’s Choice (acquired by Pearson book publisher) & Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP) – supplier of Core Curriculum & associated with Goldman Sachs Foundation.

Susan Eddins – Illinois & Science Academy Educational Consultant as well as Fortune 500 consultant.

Sol Garfunkel executive director of COMAP – supplying curriculum materials – with advisers from Decision Systems Inc. ( specializing in “business intelligence” and data mining for IBM & Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Inst., Proctor Houston & Assoc., Ferrio Assoc. – ed tech marketing firm who work with Dana Center and Istron Group….funding…a long list but includes Exxon, Department of Ed, IBM, Intel…you get the idea.

Jason Zimba – private college professor with association to Student Achievement Partners whose board of advisers include Phil Daro and Jim Rosenthal – associated with Morgan Stanley, Smith Barney, Lehman Brothers & McKinsey & Co.

Andrew Chen president of EduTron Corporation – interactive course ware 6-12.

Uri Treisman executive director of Charles A. Dana Center – associated with the National Governors Assoc., CCSSO – Council of Chief State School Officers, Agile Mind – “internet tools at a fraction of the costs” & the Gates Foundation.

Matthew Davis director of reading program at Core Knowledge Foundation…E.D. Hirsch writer of Core Curriculum Jr.

Both David and Meredith Liben (who they know?) of Liben Education Consulting, L.L.C. – Student Achievement Partner.

Louisa Moats – Moats Associates Consulting, Inc.

Laura Mongello – VP Product Development, The Quarasan Group Inc. – private publishing & content development whose clientele includes Pearson.

Gates funded Achieve members – William McCallum, Laura McGiffert Slover, Douglas Sovde, JoAnne T. Eresh, Susan Pimentel

ACT associations – Ken Mullen, Nina Metzner, Jim Patterson

Private Colleges – you want to trace the funding? – 11 represented.

SO, my mild little article was about the power and control of THE Common Core while deep in my core – based on where my own research took me – the only right thing to do is to help #StopCommonCore

OUR country; OUR schools.

OUR country; OUR schools, too important to let fail.

We never needed THE Common Core to bring back the fostering of critical thinking, better writing, and teaching children how to show their work. We used to do those things before we began marching in the wrong direction.

 

Assessing the Risk

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Is it fair to have said in 1983, and to say now, that we are a nation at risk? My gut tells me yes, forever and always, we should be viewing this republic in that light lest we become complacent. Wait! Too late? … Not really.

The words “rising tide of mediocrity” from Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education report, titled “A Nation at Risk,” lives in infamy to stir a divisive debate. Were those words a fair assessment?

To decide, I reviewed the 11 statistical indicators used by the commission but then I got to thinking; education reports of any true significance to long-term progress (which is what should be part of our concern) tend to run a decade or so behind any given change. And that is when it dawned on me to ask my fellow 1974 graduates what they thought of the education we received in our small, mid-western, blue-collar town.

I posted this on Facebook: “Albion High School (AHS) Graduates: how would you describe our education at AHS? Great/Mediocre/Poor?” Was this scientific? No. Is it significant? You decide.

Those that responded overwhelmingly judged their education in the late 60’s and early 70’s as mediocre leaning towards poor. Was it a “rising tide”? I don’t know. But what I do know is, as expressed in the responses by those that had gone to other schools, our school was “not as challenging as the other schools. I couldn’t believe the difference!”

This was unequal access; it existed then, it exists now.

John W. Gardner, an influential Republican in a Democrat's administration.

John W. Gardner, an influential Republican who served both parties and helped bring to fruition a federal education law under a  Democrat’s administration.

However, if you read down through the responses from my wise classmates, you’ll find that they/we were not fully crippled by the mediocrity of our educational background and we recognize that it took concerted individual effort to overcome the shortcomings of our formal education. Some acknowledged what a privilege it was to come from families that had and valued books and many of those that responded were, one way or another, able to pursue higher education.

I was left wondering about those that did not respond. Did they find support and fill the educational gaps? Did they have talents they never developed to their full potential? How much American talent is lost when mediocre education is accepted anywhere?

 How is this a fair shot?

And why are education pundits, bloggers, leaders, etc. still blaming a report for the take-over of education reform by the education industry? Is that a fair assessment? More importantly, wouldn’t it be in the best interest of children for us to look at and reevaluate our history of education reforms in a positive light?

Take the good; leave the bad behind. Change; improve; make progress! 

Stop the No-Win Blame Game

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Excerpt from The Crucial Voice: Chapter 5 What Is the Problem? Why Children Get Left Behind

WHAT WE HAVE IS A SYSTEMIC FAILURE

The system has failed to thoroughly educate the public about educational issues. Our inaction on this long-ago identified problem has led us to accept the unacceptable. As Yong Zhao observed in his book Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization, “The American public, short of other easy-to-understand measures, seems to have accepted the notion that test scores are an accurate measure of the quality of their schools” (2009, 33). It is not right.

The takeover of our education policy and practices at the exclusion of “us” in the process has not been a result of the “business-model”; it has been a result of a greed-driven, self-serving society. It has brought more education wars: competition in opposition to cooperation, choice against commonality, rigor versus flexibility. Stop. The collateral damage has been too great.

The system has failed to show understanding of the learning environment that 89dd4de0e80a965b6d93a07100f7af0dneeds to be created in classrooms and in communities to provide what children need to be educated to their fullest potential. We have unknowingly created another “gap”—the wisdom gap. It is reminiscent of the story of the old man picking up starfish on the beach and throwing them back. A young boy thinking it foolish tells the old man, “it doesn’t matter; they’ll wash up again tomorrow.” The old man flings one far into the sea and says, “It mattered to this one.” That story didn’t just demonstrate that we can save one at a time; it also expressed the vision of the elder passing on wisdom to our youth.

Wisdom comes from knowledge, experience, and understanding. It comes with time. And as John Taylor Gatto expressed in Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, “without children and old people mixing in daily life, a community has no future and no past, only a continuous present” (2005, 21). Gatto originally wrote that book in 1992 and used the term “pseudo-community.” In far too many places today, our “present” is no different from our past. Our nation is at risk.

But remember, not all schools are a problem. Schools that fail to properly educate children have a common underlying issue, as expressed by Ratner, “the absence of the key human resources” necessary to be effective (2007, 22). And if “academic proficiency” is our educational goal, current policies incorrectly assume “that schools and districts already know what to do to accomplish this goal and have the capacity to do so. . . . And it incorrectly assumes that if districts cannot turn failing schools around, the state departments of education have the capacity to assist them to do so, or, if necessary, to do it themselves” (49).

Capacity means possessing the knowledge, skills, abilities, motivation, and desire to accomplish a goal. In the case of school improvement, it means being able to take the handbook off the shelf and make things happen. First, we have to stop blaming each other. And then as Philip K. will tell you, “We must put aside our differences.”

We’ve all heard teachers who complained about how “the families of their students simply did not value education” (Noguera, 2003, 47). Yet it turns out that this statement, as Noguera points out in his story, was made by people who in reality didn’t know this to be true. It was and continues to be an assumption. If lawmakers and educators are out there “blaming uncaring parents, lazy students, or a society that does not provide adequately for the needs of poor children” (49), they need to stop playing the no-win blame game so we can get on with meeting our shared responsibility to serve the educational and developmental needs of all children.

When we have underperforming schools anywhere in our country, we have a systemic problem. If you believe there is no way to “reform” the public school system, then it is understandable that you would want to throw in the towel and privatize the whole business. But there is another choice.

We now understand better than ever what needs to happen and where that change needs to occur first—in the boundary waters where teachers, parents, and kids are found floating around searching for solutions to grab onto. ©2012 The Crucial Voice of the People, Past and Present (Note: Boundary Dynamics explains my use of “boundary waters.”)

Will society throw them a strong lifeline?

Will society throw out a strong lifeline?

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