Post by Chris_Wendt on Aug 27, 2012 11:41:38 GMT -5
"Wrong Focus on Schools" (hyperlink to Newsday.com)
This is a thought-provoking opinion piece that really should come as no surprise to anyone living in a predominately white, middle-class suburban school district. Please take a moment or two to read it and thus set the table for the rest of the discussion.
Who has had the wrong focus on schools? Certainly not the parents and taxpayers here in Wantagh. Certainly not our educators, who have for the most part got education right, here. In my mind's eye there are two big, bad culprits who have mis-focused on American schools, but especially on OUR schools, here in middle-class, predominately white Wantagh, suburban Long Island.
1. The Federal Government got the totally wrong focus when, despite the states' rights assignment of education as a state responsibility under the Constitution, Congress created the US Department of Education, and then used that ill-conceived bureaucracy to buy influence over states' education departments, and to corrupt and confuse "public education" with social engineering and the re-distribution of wealth among the states, in the name of education. Upon reading the Newsday Op-ed, it would seem clear that instead of creating a cabinet-level federal education department, that Congress should have made a full-court press in the "War on Poverty", to go after the root cause of poor educational results in high-poverty areas.
Of course, what could be wrong with Federal education programs addressing the symptoms of ingrained poverty (instead of working to relieve or eliminate the underlying poverty)? There is a long litany of failed federal education programs (meaning programs trying to overcome poverty by ameliorating the effects of poverty, but leaving the poverty intact) which have cost the taxpayers of Wantagh dearly, but to no avail.
Consider No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Wantagh was not leaving any children behind before NCLB, and we are not leaving any children behind, now, but not because of NCLB. Instead, Wantagh has suffered compliance costs which increased our taxes; wasted time on assessments, and worst of all, we have been unable to make further significant advances in our own curriculum because we are slavishly trying to follow some national curriculum while keeping our focus riveted on "teaching to the tests" instead of developing a break-out advanced science research program, for example.
The best (worst) example is APPR (teacher assessments) which the Op-Ed addresses as well.
2. NYSED and the Board of Regents have fallen into lock-step with the federal preemption of real educational goals and objectives, and have acceded to the federally-initiated wasting of state educational resources competing for big block grants like "Race to the Top" and therein making or buying-in to stupid decisions, APPR being foremost among them.
The Regents exams have lost much, most, or all of their luster, having been dumbed-down (or, mediocre-d-up) in the name of social engineering. This is not harmless, either, as I presume some of Wantagh's top-end students have been penalized as a result of the current rubrics used on some Regents exams scoring.
As far as I am concerned, the acquiescence of the Commissioner and the Regents, themselves in masking symptoms of structural poverty by jiggering with what should be objective educational outcomes, would be difficult to forgive. It is understandable only in the context of cash-driven, spineless political servitude. It is incomprehensible in any context that includes accountability for the results of educational effort and educational (tax) dollars.
What do you think?
Chris Wendt
This is a thought-provoking opinion piece that really should come as no surprise to anyone living in a predominately white, middle-class suburban school district. Please take a moment or two to read it and thus set the table for the rest of the discussion.
Who has had the wrong focus on schools? Certainly not the parents and taxpayers here in Wantagh. Certainly not our educators, who have for the most part got education right, here. In my mind's eye there are two big, bad culprits who have mis-focused on American schools, but especially on OUR schools, here in middle-class, predominately white Wantagh, suburban Long Island.
1. The Federal Government got the totally wrong focus when, despite the states' rights assignment of education as a state responsibility under the Constitution, Congress created the US Department of Education, and then used that ill-conceived bureaucracy to buy influence over states' education departments, and to corrupt and confuse "public education" with social engineering and the re-distribution of wealth among the states, in the name of education. Upon reading the Newsday Op-ed, it would seem clear that instead of creating a cabinet-level federal education department, that Congress should have made a full-court press in the "War on Poverty", to go after the root cause of poor educational results in high-poverty areas.
Of course, what could be wrong with Federal education programs addressing the symptoms of ingrained poverty (instead of working to relieve or eliminate the underlying poverty)? There is a long litany of failed federal education programs (meaning programs trying to overcome poverty by ameliorating the effects of poverty, but leaving the poverty intact) which have cost the taxpayers of Wantagh dearly, but to no avail.
Consider No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Wantagh was not leaving any children behind before NCLB, and we are not leaving any children behind, now, but not because of NCLB. Instead, Wantagh has suffered compliance costs which increased our taxes; wasted time on assessments, and worst of all, we have been unable to make further significant advances in our own curriculum because we are slavishly trying to follow some national curriculum while keeping our focus riveted on "teaching to the tests" instead of developing a break-out advanced science research program, for example.
The best (worst) example is APPR (teacher assessments) which the Op-Ed addresses as well.
2. NYSED and the Board of Regents have fallen into lock-step with the federal preemption of real educational goals and objectives, and have acceded to the federally-initiated wasting of state educational resources competing for big block grants like "Race to the Top" and therein making or buying-in to stupid decisions, APPR being foremost among them.
The Regents exams have lost much, most, or all of their luster, having been dumbed-down (or, mediocre-d-up) in the name of social engineering. This is not harmless, either, as I presume some of Wantagh's top-end students have been penalized as a result of the current rubrics used on some Regents exams scoring.
As far as I am concerned, the acquiescence of the Commissioner and the Regents, themselves in masking symptoms of structural poverty by jiggering with what should be objective educational outcomes, would be difficult to forgive. It is understandable only in the context of cash-driven, spineless political servitude. It is incomprehensible in any context that includes accountability for the results of educational effort and educational (tax) dollars.
What do you think?
Chris Wendt