Congressional education report: 5 years and $700k to recommend "equity"
Summary: A lengthy effort to examine the state of education in American schools released their final report today. Apparently, we need equity in our schools.
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But wait, it gets better. Here's a few bites from Congressman Honda's forward to the document:
- "...This is a declaration of an urgent national mission: to provide equity and excellence in education in American public schools once and for all."
- "We present a big and bold new vision on the federal role in education by recommending transformations in school funding structures, implementation of vibrant early education programs, and a commitment to a stronger investment for teacher preparation and retention in the field."
- "This game-changing report embraces the urgent truth in education reform: that parity is not equity."
And here's what a few stakeholders had to say about the report:
- "This report offers a cautionary note about the consequences of our anemic and regressive support for education." -NAACP
- “Through much debate and deliberation, this report presents a blueprint for how to guarantee that each child has a fair shot at the American Dream.” - Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University
- "[This report] notes that we cannot achieve educational excellence for all our children without addressing the educational, physical and social and emotional needs of our most vulnerable children. America must do what we do in our best schools in all our schools, for all our students. - American Federation for Teachers
Really? It took two years, an act of Congress, and a panel of experts to agree that we should, really for sure, provide equitable educational opportunities for all of our students? That schools should follow best practices? That we need to make sure kids feel safe and have enough to eat so they can learn? My 10-year old could have told them that for a hell of a lot less than $700,000. This is not rocket science.
The problem will be implementation. Sure, this document is being heralded as a blueprint. But blueprints aren't worth the paper on which they're printed if we don't build anything from them. Does anyone actually believe that real reform, the right funding, and better policies that promote wonderful teaching in urban, rural, and suburban schools will come out of this document? Where is the legislation that implements these recommended reforms or that addresses this "cautionary note"?
And not to pick on the NAACP, but if all we get is a "cautionary note" out of this report, then, again, we should have looked at the vast body of literature, grassroots efforts at reform, begging parents, screaming teachers, and disillusioned students for our "note of caution." Give me a break - We're a long way past caution. We should be in full-on crisis mode with policy makers taking immediate, unified action. But we aren't and they won't. Congress can barely agree that we should pay our bills, let alone bring education in this country to the levels seen in other countries around the world. We're too mired in bureaucracy and political game playing to do more than create an advisory committee to form a commission to write a report.
I think this process suggests just what's going to come of the Commission's report. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But I bet the report will be nicely bound in Arne Duncan's office. Super. I wonder how many other reports are lining the shelves of his office while dropout rates skyrocket, teens enter college (if they're lucky) woefully unprepared for the coursework, and the rest enter the workforce with no reasonable vocational training to compete in a global marketplace for even skilled labor jobs.
Keep your report and give us some workable legislation or step aside and get out of the education business entirely. Because "Ed Reform" hasn't accomplished much more than turn our students into solid test-takers. You'll have to forgive me if I don't have much faith in this latest "blueprint" for actually creating the equity and opportunities it identifies.
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Talkback
A study of history and human nature
And what is your solution to this problem?
Die, straw man!
What it does do, regardless of system, is lay down the boundaries within which all problems will be solved or not-solved.
The framework of law, for instance, and its execution.
The framework of infrastructure, health, schooling. Defence. Police. Fire protection. Rescue. Environmental protection. Law. Higher education ...
In France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, etc, higher education is essentially free. Think what that means in terms of freedom, freedom to pursue your goals, realise your potential.
Education Reform
joint the discussion
I do think that federal involvement in education needs to be cut back
Education has traditionally been under state jurisdiction with operational authority over primary and secondary education delegated to locally elected boards. This provides lots of opportunity to see what works and what doesn't and makes it easier for voters to determine which politicians should get the credit and which should get the blame (that and people have the opportunity to vote with their feet). The traditional system is nowhere near perfect, but federal efforts to fix it don't seem to be helping.
Desire to learn...
Back when schools simply taught subject matter, kids who wanted to learn, learned. They weren't there for socialist taxpayer-funded breakfasts and lunches. In our nation's history, we see examples of those who didn't even have much formal schooling, but acquired knowledge on their own, become world-famous scientists (Edison) and political leaders (Lincoln). Not every school need be equally funded per capita, in order for the kids to be "equal". It comes from desire to learn.
We are trying to treat the symptoms, instead of addressing root problems (cultural and familial decay).
So what is your proposal?
Or would you prefer to scrap the whole system of public education and reserve formal education to those whose families can afford it?
Regardless, consider the plusses and minuses, remembering that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch (not even anarcho-capitalism is free).
Quite a mouthful
Given this, the next Edison gets a chance, even if he (or she, gasp!) is born in a less than privileged part of town.
You can look at this from a utlity perspective - society needs highly educated people. Or you can look at it as an ethical question - equal opportunity, regardless of where you happen to be born. The latter will never be achieved, but let not that stop us from thinking in a principled manner.
Opponents of state/federal solutions seem to think that there is something magical about "private" money. In my experience, there is equally as much silliness in the private sector. It just doesn´t get talked about quite so much.
The big difference is that the public purse - in theory - is controlled by the people, which in theory, makes for a more democratic decision process, and more equal , or is that equitable, distribution of resources.
The fact that this report was a waste of money does not prove that public funding of schools is "bad". That in turn depends what you want to achieve. If you are content to butter the path of the already privileged - effectively killing the american dream - then well-funded public schools are unnecessary. I would argue that that is again an ethical question.
An excelent piece, Chris!
To decide who gets laid off, states turns to seniority as their only guiding principle. In my small community alone, in two back-to-back budget cycles, award-winning teachers have been laid-off because they lacked seniority so that less-competent but longer-serving teachers would keep their jobs.
No Child Left Behind has made matters worse. Schools have been left to act as social services for children living in poverty. School districts serving the poor become isolated and fair poorly when put up against schools which are predominantly upper-middle class in state-sponsored testing.
Schools serving these kids end up under-funded, branded as "under-performing", and often lose their best teachers to school districts who can pay more based upon their being schools in upper-middle-class neighborhoods.
The fact that poverty has a much more profound affect on learning than any other single factor is ignored. Raise the quality of living for these kids and their ability to learn will become apparent. The schools cannot do that - but Congress can.
Congress can reduce poverty?
We Get What We Fight For
That would be a good thing
That which we can do should be done and it can be only beneficial for citizens to pay attention to what their politicians do in their name and to nudge them into doing the right thing whenever necessary.
And While I'm At It