Category Archives: Education Reform

Change and the Inconvenience of Listening

Posted on by
1

I finally put an inscription in my copy of my own book. It’s a reminder to do my best to advance change. Its advice I have tried to follow ever since observing the state of my own community’s schools and coming to the realization that we have a systemic problem. So, since 1999, I’ve been scraping my way up the education food chain trying to improve the public education system. Progress? Not yet.

As happenstance would have it, in reference to the second Obama term, Secretary of Education Duncan has recently stated that “Our basic theory of action is not going to change.” Personally, I feel like I’ve been knocked down again! I believe the American people deserve at least a chance at changing the direction of “reform.” Where’s that conversation? Anyone listening? And what the hell did Secretary Duncan mean by “theory of action”?

I explained one theory of action in chapter 3 (page 24) of The Crucial Voice of the People. I used the National Science Resource Center Theory of Action model. It is based on knowledge of research-based practices. The action part is a theory but its basis is proven best practices. It is not action based on theory. It is action based on science – using knowledge to guide change.

“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry,” President-elect Obama said. “It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States—and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.” December, 2008.

You got a couple of things right back then, Mr. President; it’s about listening. And, we need to search for a greater understanding.

Changing the theory of action upon which we base education reform would be inconvenient; but it’s the right thing to do if we wish to reach our goal.

How Devoted Are You?

Posted on by
Reply

Wake up! We sent the same lawmakers back and expect different results. Well, maybe you are right. It can happen; it must happen. The question is: How do we expect it to happen?

Do we expect “the system” to fix itself? Hum. I personally have never seen it but it does happen in other places in the country and the world; so, yes, it could happen. But I don’t think it will unless we push the issues.

Have we had the conversations we need to have had to get the ball rolling? I haven’t heard them but I’m not in the “in” crowd. I can only hope that the influential have a clue and are listening.

Can we see we are at a crossroads and that it means making choices? I’m not sure that others do understand. And that really is a problem because it is the power of ordinary people coming together devoted to a cause that will bring about the systemic change we need.

You say you want solutions? But how devoted are you to looking for them?

 

Reform: Do Not Pass Go

Posted on by
2

Missing something? Then, do not pass go. Instead, step back. Do an assessment of the state of education —a local, state, or nation level assessment.

Now ask yourself; to realistically evaluate and set the direction of reform, why are we looking to and at the same people with the same mindset that created the status quo? How will they create change? Will it be real education reform if it is based on the same principles that led to the same policy types and practices that have failed to show real and lasting progress on the “education reform” front?

It is insane to keep repeating the same mistakes. But it is part of our reality; face it. And face the fact that we must change the nation’s guiding principles of reform.

In Idaho, voters rejected education “reform” laws that lawmakers put in place…. But we sent the same lawmakers back for another round. Face the fact; we need new leaders.

Nationally, we saw congressional obstructionism lead to a downgrade of our national credit rating and overall the nation sent most of those same lawmakers back to face the same issues,… again.

People, there is only one way out — a plan that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Targeted — a SMART plan. And it is essential that it has NOT ONLY the consent of the people, but it MUST BE PUSHED by the people. DO NOT PASS GO; let’s push a plan that measures what matters most to us.

Our participation in governing is the only thing that can stop the insanity.

Get involved. Learn more about reform.

Reform: Where to Begin?

Posted on by
1

It would seem obvious, you begin where you are. But to really know where you are with education reform, you do need some assessments—these assessments are not what you might think. To really assess where you are, you have to step back to get a wider view of what is happening and what has happened that contributed to producing what now exists as your reality.

Unfortunately, this first step appears to be where the first mistakes are made. We need to spend more time at this point because our assessment of our current state of affairs, the status quo, will play a huge role in determining the beliefs and assumptions that will guide our actions.

Whether you are looking at the local level with school improvement or at state and national levels with education reform law, you must have a very clear and accurate picture of the conditions that need changing and how they were created.

So my advice on where to begin is to assess not just the students’ scores on tests but to proceed with assessing where teachers, parents, and the business community believe we can improve. That input should then narrow the choices for further assessment tools that can be used. For every aspect of reform that you may be concerned about, there’s an assessment for that!

Then with our principles firmly cemented in our hearts and our assessments in hand, we are there – where we begin.

Reforms Should Honor Our Principles

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a little story about how reforms should honor our principles.

In a conversation with a young nurse the other day, she proceeded to tell me what she thought about public schools. She had been a school nurse while her children were in a regular public school and felt it gave her a different perspective. She then went on to volunteer the information that her children were now in the “charter system.” O.K., there’s a hook I couldn’t resist.

The conversation ran along these lines;

Me: “What did you see as the problem?”

Her: “There is so much waste.” (She didn’t elaborate and I didn’t press it.)

Me: “You see a big difference between the charter school and the regular public?”

Her: “Oh, yes. The kids are so much more respectful at the charter school. The behavior was terrible in the public school and the teachers had this idea that there was nothing they could do about it. And the parents were just as bad as their kids!”

…and the conversation drifted to sports and more bad behaviors. But her points were made; they have been made before.

People want public schools to be places of civility. Respect is a basic principle of real education reform. emmylou-harris-musician-quote-as-citizens-we-have-to-be-more

People want OUR government institutions to be as thrifty with our tax dollars as we working-class people must be with our own.

Reforms should honor our principles.

The policies and practices of education reform must be based on the fundamental truths and doctrines we believe in. So my advise is for us to consider that civility and thriftiness are good starting points for lawmakers as well as schools.

The Principles, Policies, and Practices of Reform

Posted on by
Reply

Leaving my first meeting with Idaho Authors’ Community, two young women stopped me. They had overheard we were meeting and happened to have a friend hoping to become a published author. It was refreshing to be reminded of my own beginnings as a writer and the excitement of starting down a new path!

But the next day, I awoke recalling how difficult it had been for a “non-educator” to break into the education professionals publishing world and the struggle I faced with finding my first endorsers for my book. I felt it would be a waste of their time and mine to ask people to review something if it wasn’t even close to what they believed. So my effort included looking at a multitude of organizations and individuals and trying to decipher where they really stood on education reform principles, policies, and practices.

After much eye-blasting time at the computer and attempts to talk to live people, my conclusion was that the average Jane and Joe Q. Public can’t possibly sort out who really stands for what when it comes to “education reform.” I many times found myself having to dig really, really hard to find out who was the money behind many of these organizations. And the inter-connectedness of the influential was disturbing.

So how can we possibly expect the public to rise up and have their decisions lead us in the right direction?

And that is when I must remind myself why I wrote my book — in hopes of shedding light on the most important issue this nation must face — quality and equality for school children. If and how we get there will be up to the public.

It will begin with understanding what real education reform means, clearly facing facts, and moving forward focused on the goal.

Central to Progress: Conversations

Posted on by
2

Previously in Actions Set the Standard, I discussed what should be seen as the ultimate of school reform conversations – the one that takes place between the primary adult in a child’s life and the child’s teacher. How it works out for the child depends on how well these adults can converse.

I’m afraid that art is going by the wayside. And without practice, we will not master the art of conversation and our society will suffer because we won’t be able to effectively put our heads together to solve problems.

I will be the first to admit that even after learning about some of the do’s and don’ts of dialogue and debate, I have trouble using what I know. When it comes to the topic of education reform, my passion gets in the way and I start to feel like I’m arguing instead of conversing. At those moments, I become part of the problem.

Education reform is all about a problem solving process that requires collaboration, cooperation, and the communications necessary to make those things happen.

I remember seeing a team shirt once that had the Henry Ford saying “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

Conversations are the essential glue which binds us together. Without them happening at all governing levels and in between …well, look what has happened…no child left behind? Right? Our so-called representatives have proved themselves incapable of taking the first step of coming together for the sake of this nation’s children.

When this year’s political pandering is history, we citizens need to have a serious conversation with each other and our representatives.

Essential to Reform : Cooperation/Collaboration

Posted on by
Reply

In addition to the word communication, we really need to consider some other very important “C” words — collaboration and cooperation — which both mean the same thing, “to work together.” Those in education circles tend to use the word “collaboration” which can also mean “working with the enemy.” And I think most of us regular folks use the word “cooperation” more often and it also has an expanded meaning, “to combine so as to produce an effect.”

Right now, our differences divide us. We can’t work together when we continue to allow barriers to stop our progress.

Anyway you look at it, working together is a proposition easier said than done probably because the basis of it goes back to communications. We struggle because of differences in our use of words, the way we interpret words, how we relate them to our experiences, our body language or lack thereof in cyberspace, and a whole host of other communications related problems. Many of these things could be clarified if we would just ask questions and converse more often.

We have to remember, it isn’t about us; it’s about them. Real education reform will only happen when we work together to do what’s best for our kids. That is the page to start on.

An Instrument of Reform: Communications

Posted on by
1

People can be an amazing source of information and inspiration. And there is something to be said for the old saying, “two heads are better than one.” But it only rings true when the two heads are able to communicate. After all, communicating is referred to as the science of transmitting information.

Communications is a much more complicated process than most of us tend to realize and I’m afraid we are so busy that miscommunications are occurring more than we recognize. It took observing children and seeing their perplexed looks over something misunderstood to draw my attention to the topic. And the difficulty of communicating became crystal clear when I took to writing and began questioning how my words would be interpreted.

So when we begin to look at school improvements, or education reform, we need desperately to learn to communicate better with each other. We not only need to share our knowledge and perspectives with others but we have to use each others’ input to solve problems — that’s a lot of communicating! It’s a big quagmire where many an education reform has gotten sucked in and died.

Until education reformists learn and practice the art of effective communications, we will continue to stumble where reform is needed most. Schools with large concentrations of poverty don’t tend to have many people considered “influential.” As individuals, they aren’t heard. So more often than not, group action is required.

We all have to be able to communicate – with each other and the influential – to be effective.

The Culture of Our Society

Posted on by
8

“Education experts” fight over how much in-school and out-of-school factors contribute to student’s outcomes. Meanwhile, headlines in my newspaper today read, “Doctors help students make the grade — with drugs.” I thought it was going to be about college students; it wasn’t.

They talked about young students, adolescents! If a student has “trouble listening to instructions and concentrating,” there’s a drug for that. Need a competitive edge, there’s a drug for that. I know I’m not the only one that sees the wrong in this.

So where do we point the finger of blame; “overcrowded classrooms,” the “frustrated parents” asking for the drugs, competition and the need for kids to “perform better”? Or will we hear the truth in what this pediatrician said,

“We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment, so we have to modify the kid.”

Why French Kids Don't Have ADHD https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201203/why-french-kids-dont-have-adhd

Why French Kids Don’t Have ADHD https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201203/why-french-kids-dont-have-adhd

We don’t have time or resources to work with these troubled kids, but, we have a drug for that. This kind of “medical reasoning” will keep some Wall Street stock numbers up. Some will enjoy that high.

This isn’t just one dramatization, it’s wide-spread and it’s real.

Long ago, teacher Sarah McIntosh Puglist described the culture of her school to me as “test-based.” Yesterday she wrote about the culture once again saying, “…now I’m afraid many look upon struggling kids as something to resent.” Have children become a bother to society?

All should be able to see that the school culture can’t help but be influenced by the culture of our society. This is assuming that people (kids and adults alike) don’t quit being people when they walk through the schoolhouse doors.

If ever there is a time to stop and think, this is it.

“Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.” Sitting Bull