There's much to read over at Change.gov about Obama's policies on Education, but among all the good stuff, there are some items that veteran public school teachers are very uncomfortable with.
We have serious doubts, for example, about these:
Support High-Quality Schools and Close Low-Performing Charter Schools: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the Federal Charter School Program to support the creation of more successful charter schools. An Obama-Biden administration will provide this expanded charter school funding only to states that improve accountability for charter schools, allow for interventions in struggling charter schools and have a clear process for closing down chronically underperforming charter schools. Obama and Biden will also prioritize supporting states that help the most successful charter schools to expand to serve more students.
Anything relating to increasing the funding for and the expansion of charter schools is more or less a swipe at public education. Why do we have to hand over tax dollars to corporations? It's not that they do the job any better. Cut class size first, improve the facilities, give the kids the services they need. It's not that it's a charter school that will educate them better. It's more a question of finding the political will to reduce the numbers of kids we teach each period and address the social issues in certain communities that keep kids from succeeding.
Prepare Teachers: Obama and Biden will require all schools of education to be accredited. Obama and Biden will also create a voluntary national performance assessment so we can be sure that every new educator is trained and ready to walk into the classroom and start teaching effectively. Obama and Biden will also create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.
There isn't any performance assessment, voluntary or not, that can ensure that every new educator is ready to start teaching effectively. That's because assessments leave out the most volatile factor in the classroom: real children. Assessments will always be arbitrary. Experience and hard work make teachers effective. Why do you think an assessment at the very beginning of a new career is going to get you a good teacher?
Reward Teachers: Obama and Biden will promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. Districts will be able to design programs that reward with a salary increase accomplished educators who serve as a mentors to new teachers. Districts can reward teachers who work in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well.
Increase my pay when I teach more hours. I will not teach better, harder, more intelligently, or with greater adaptability if you pay me more money. Where do you get that idea from, the business world? Cash bonuses might get you better scores or graduation rates, but not necessarily better educated students. There are plenty of people who will take the money and fix the grades, or make the tests easier, or pass more people if they do a couple of hours Credit Recovery over the summer. Human greed has produced some pretty horrendous results in the past decade. You should have learned by now that more cash can only produce better scams. Bonuses for taking positions in inner cities might work, but only with longer hours. First lower class size, then give the kids all the support services they need. No one's trying much of those things in our biggest cities these days.It's crucial that you put together a program for America's children that comes from true blue educators — not corporations, think tanks, financial institutions or testing companies. You have to learn how to walk away from anyone wanting a piece of our education dollars. These people are in the "business" of education all right, but few of the manager types have spent much time educating.
A comment showed up in a NYC ed blog about the failure of the chancellor's reforms. Joel Klein — a veritable darling of educorp — has certainly been around long enough for us to see something he's done work, if it were there to be seen. Instead, she says:
Klein has drained our schools of life, energy, experience and money.
That's worth repeating:
Klein has drained our schools of life, energy, experience and money.I cannot imagine being a new teacher now in a NYC public school. Even if you come in with exquisite preparation, nothing works the way it did in your classes or your student teaching experiences. Yet, whole schools are now comprised of brand new faculty and administrators. And in every new small school which I have visited I find student artwork done with primitive materials -- construction paper, oaktag and markers. This is true for all of their assignments in every field of study. Students are creating charts by hand in a world where their counterparts in private schools can devise charts with computer programs and with the internet at their fingertips. They are producing hand drawn, stick figurines with magic markers and often, sadly, the writing on the posters they create is filled with errors of which a first grader should be ashamed. The flagships of the Klein administration are schools in which 30 or more children surround a 22 year old teacher who is working with little more than chalk and talk. And they are housed in old school buildings and forced to compete with other schools for classroom space. In the 21st Century. In The United States of America.— Floraine Kay
Senator Obama, you who are right now planning the nation's future at the highest level should take her words very seriously.
Dear Sen. Obama,
I am working very hard for your campaign in ways that I can, but mostly, I am working very hard for students and teachers in New York City.
In your third debate, when you called Michelle Rhee the "wonderful young chancellor" in Washington, DC, many of us were horrified. We are equally shocked to hear that you might be considering Chancellor Joel Klein for Secretary of Education should you be elected president.
Klein has no credentials in education. He had to be waivered in by the state commissioner, Richard Mills (who has just resigned), to take the job and has no understanding of how kids learn or the best environment for them to learn in. Through union-busting and some pretty heavy-handed, profoundly suspect legal techniques, he has been systematically depleting the system of senior teachers and replacing them with a stream of grad student trainees — cheap, manipulable, and often transient — who do not have the experience or all the skills to get the job done.
Children are not computer bytes, and they can't be fully defined or assessed by numbers. They must each find their way through a maze of information, social differences, and personalities, ingesting what they can under the particular circumstances they find themselves in. In New York City, politicians refuse to lower class size and do little to address the social issues of our poorest communities. The current chancellor knows this, and he doesn't much care. He's engaged in social engineering with the most powerful sector of our society, the corporations and the very rich.
Klein's original restructuring of the school system was a very expensive shake-up, and the two subsequent attempts no more than do-overs. He hasn't made schools in this city any better than they had been, because it's obvious students aren't doing so well and neither are the teachers. He excluded parents and the rank-and-file from the decision-making process, poured millions into machines to crunch data for no practical purpose, and he neither respects or defends truth. He has also hired an expensive PR machine to sell his malicious agenda to a disengaged public, and maybe even to you.
Below is an article written by a long-term educator and every bit of it is true.
If Joel Klein became Secretary of Education, what advice would he give?
Posted by A Voice in the Wilderness November 1, 2008
According to The Huffington Post, there is a rumor that NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is a potential candidate to be Secretary of Education to Barack Obama.
Ok, ok, stop screaming.
As painful as it is to think about, I decided to project what advice Klein would give to school districts across the country if he ever found himself in this position. I based the advice on his past performance as chancellor in New York City. It would probably go something like this:
Numbers in the toilet? Fudge ‘Em!
Listen, you and I both know that all this data and accountability crap is a big old crock of you know what, but the public loves that kind of stuff. So, if you find that the numbers are down and the data is reflecting that you’re not doing a good job, bend the rules a bit.
Let me give you a great example. When I was chancellor in New York City, people were giving me crap about low graduation rates. Please. Anyway, I sent a memo to all principals and told them to create ‘credit recovery’ classes. It was genius! All over the city, schools stuck kids in a room for a few hours, did something simple like show a movie, and told kids to write a few sentences about it. A few scribbles later, and the kids got 2 high school credits.
Presto, chango, graduation rates went up!
Note: If any principals give you any lip about ‘not the best solution for children’ just fire their asses.
Violent Incidents in Schools Getting You Down? Bury ‘Em!
Every once in a while, you’ll get some uppity principal who tries to report every little violent incident, thinking they’ll get some help or something. This is what you do - punish ‘em. Put them on an Impact List and threaten to close them down. Pretty soon, the whiners get the message and stop reporting things like weapon possession and heart attacks.
Make Your Own Principals
Sick of those namsey, pamsey ‘collaborative’ types who keep going on and on about ‘what’s best for children’? Create your own school principals. That’s what me and Mikey did. We made our own ‘Leadership Academy’. Now, we get scores of principals who fudge those numbers when we tell them too.
Pack Kids in as Tightly as Possible
Don’t buy into this educational hoopla about children needing more attention and all that positive school climate crap. Pack in as many kids as you can into as small a space possible. Save you lots of money, and then you can give property away to make charter schools!
Change Educational Programs Frequently
Look, one reading program is as good as the next. Well, I wouldn’t really know about that since I’m not an educator, but who really cares in the long run? And stop buying into the b.s. about consistency. Change programs as often as you want. Here’s a secret - when you do that, you can make great deals for your friends. Owe Kenny a few grand? throw him an educational contract. We do it all the time.
Take What You Can, While You Still Can.
Let’s face it. Chancellors and superintendents don’t last very long. Well, in my case it’s different ’cause I’ve got a billionaire buying off term elections, but in general, the life expectancy of a chancellor is pretty short. That’s why you and your friends need to take as much as you can get while you’re there.
Me and my buddies did and it was great!
