Thus far I have felt very off-center in class this quarter. To me, ready to begin a new chapter in my life, it seems as if the majority of the information has been negative, and overwhelmingly depressing. Thus far this quarter has been evocative of Eyore, from Winnie-the-pooh. "It will never work, no one cares, why even try?"
The schools are too big, too impersonal, to under-funded; they do not allow or support creativity or true higher level learning. Too many schools, and too many teachers practice "mob management (Ayers, p. xiv) and here is a positive little thought "Today, teaching may not seem so attractive, nor so compelling in quite the same way. Not only are schools in worse shape than before, and the problems seemingly more intractible, but there is a narrow, selfish spirit loose in the land. Idealists are "suckers" in the currency of the day, and the notion that schools should be decent, accesible, and responsive places for all children is just more Pie-in-the-sky. With a combative social Darwinism settingt the pace in our society, and a cynical sense that morality has no place in our public lives, teaching today can seem a fool's errand." (Ayers, p. 7)
Ayers concludes that it is not a fools errand; that is is a true calling, an opportunity for caring individuals to make a difference in the lives of children. After all the arguements and reasons NOT to go into this underpaid, underappreciated, laborious field, Ayers concludes that there is still hope.
Thus far, I can only hope, and believe, that the lectures and readings are meant to push us over the edge of being uncomfortable, and make us want to fight for newfound feelings of warmth towards social justice.
One thing said in class bothers me; clearly. To convince the parents of Eastside children that the money they have separated themselves from and given to the PTSA at their school should be spent instead for another school that is in dire need. Yes, I was listening, and yes, that hit the mark. Here is my two cents; if the parents raised the money for their school just who are we to TELL them that they have done wrong, or that they are selfish isolationists for not sharing. Do we tell McDonalds to share with Washington Mutual? McDonalds stock has actually gone up; whereas we all know that Washington Mutual is in the proverbial toilet. Post-flush. These companies do not compete with each other, there would be no loss in forcing one to support the other. We're all people, and those jobs are important.
Perhaps a specific school fundraiser; entirely brought about by the children with some help from the PTSA; in order to fulfill a need that they have researched in a town that they know of, not far from their own. A project that they own, and will remember. THAT is something that can be brought about without making judgements regarding what people do with their own money, in their own child's school.
I fail to see any reason that a school should not be allowed to raise funds for a greater good of their own students, be that for a reading coach, the school play or a chess teacher. I also think, that if we looked even one inch closer at that school you would see some things that were not mentioned in any of the "how can we stand for this" literature or soliloquies. This school may have raised funds for micro-loans. They may have filled jars and jars with coins of all sorts for "Penny's for Peace." They may have rounded up coats for the homeless, food for Hopelink, presents for another school in their district to be given in December. (generally schools have begun to swap their giving tree gifts with another school so that students are not likely to run into the giver while wearing their new sweater. It makes sense and is one of a number of deeper thoughts that have gone into who the students really are. Schools are trying.)
What happened to the preface, remember ... "Talk back, speak up, be heard." It is a good mantra, and one that can change the world.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hello Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI love a good discussion, so thanks for the good thoughts here from which to launch my comments.
I'd be pretty disappointed if people finished this quarter with nothing more with warm feelings about some vague idea about how the world should work. A piece of Ayers that you didn't mention is his assertion that schools don't work well for many kids (even schools with high test scores) and that no one is better positioned to speak to ways that schools might become better than teachers. It's a pretty outdated notion that the job of teachers is limited to what goes on within their own classrooms. This quarter is about what it means to be a professional in the field of education, and as in any profession, we're addressing challenges, constraints, and ways forward, even while many people do enter teacher education with the expectation that they'll be learning mostly about their own individual practice.
We will always be balancing the critical with the possible -- as was the case in this week's readings. But we can't promise you that we just won't talk about the very real challenges facing teachers and the very complex policy contexts within which which you'll be working.
So: Washington Mutual and MacDonalds are not publicly funded institutions charged with preparing all kids to compete on equal footing as they prepare kids for challenging futures. If WAMu failed, it was not because public policy ensured that they would operate with significantly fewer resources than their competitors while being held accountable for the same outcomes as other banks that are funded by the public at substantially higher levels. When private institutions fail, we don't see editorials in the paper about how the street-level workers are just not doing their jobs. We look at who is making management decisions. That's very different from the case of how we think about public schools, where all teachers are held accountable for the same outcomes, even while they may have significantly different levels of funding to do their work.
I don't think that I said that I wanted parents to privately raise money for other schools. I'm actually pretty uncomfortable with charity as model for equalizing basic access to quality schools.
I am saying that in a time of ever-more scarce public resources for schools, many parents are turning to private funding for the schools that their own children attend. Some districts instead operate school foundations: fund raising is done centrally and advisory boards distribute funds. The understanding there is that all kids deserve very basic resources (not, as one of the people in the cohort ahead of you just told me about a school she recently visited, schools with three computers shared by the whole school, only one of which works).
There's some evidence also, gathered by people who study such things, that people whose own schools are fine because of private funding are less aware and less involved in working for better funding for all kids. There is some evidence that the motivation behind at least some of these private fund-raising efforts is to maintain competitive advantages for one's own kids, not to provide the essentials of what children need to learn (so while my kid is learning the science from the privately funded science coach that will eventually get her into Harvard, the kid across town wearing her given-away coat isn't learning enough math to get through high school because her math teacher has limited background in math).
I don't want to get too drawn into conversations about the motives or practices of these parents.
My comments about private fund raising was within the context of questions about the ethics of very unequal funding between schools -- within districts and across districts.
I'm less concerned with what some parents do than I am with the fact that kids living only a few miles apart from one another will have access to very very different public funding to support their learning, and that the teachers of kids in all those schools are held accountable for getting those kids to the same place. If all kids have the basics, I'm not that concerned about some parents frosting the cake.
What are your thoughts about unequal funding of public schools coupled with the expectations for the same levels of "accountability" for all teachers?
Looking forward to hearing more from you about your responses to the readings...