I don't have time for this, but it is too important not to comment. In today's NY Times is an article entitled Billionaires Start $60 Million Schools Effort. It is about a joint effort spearheaded by Eli Broad and Bill Gates to use the money - from their charitable foundations - to drive the debate about education in this country. If you are concerned about schools, you should take the time to read the article and consider the implications. Below the fold I will offer a few comments of my own. For now note what they are advocating:
- longer school years
- longer school days
- merit pay
- strong national standards
They are announcing all this - with big fanfare - BEFORE the first Democratic presidential debate, to try to drive the debate on education. At the same time as they are doing this, there is extended debate on Capitol Hill about issues related to the reauthorization of NCLB. One reason I don't really have time for diaries or even comments right now is that I am working very hard to inform (and perhaps persuade) on aspects of that reauthorization: I am in contact with the relevant staff of three Senators and 5 House members, and it is very time consuming.
There is no doubt that American education needs to be rethought. But these gentlemen are ignoring a key first step, which is the rethinking of the purpose of public schools. At least Broad has personal experience with public schools, having attended them as a child. Gates went to exclusive private schools. Simply doing more of the same will not necessarily address our real problems.
Let me comment briefly on each idea.
LONGER SCHOOL DAYS - if you lengthen the school day, are you going to limit the homework, and all the activities that students do as a part of growing up? Are we prepared to totally change the nature of childhood and adolescence? Can smaller children take being kept in their seats for an additional one to two hours a day, particularly as we have increased the amount of drill and kill to raise test scores? Might not that be counterproductive to real learning, and generainting enthusiasm for learning?
LONGER SCHOOL YEARS: in theory, I do not disagree, but this represents a major reshaping of the American economy. For one thing, think of all the businesses that are built around our extended summer vacation - summer camps, resorts, enrichment programs at colleges and universities. Even things like reading and scoring AP examinations to some degree depend on teachers not having to skip their classes. Could we change the shape of our school year to avoid the loss of learning that we encounter with lower SES students over the extended summer break? Yes we could, and we might be able to do that with enrichment programs without totally having to reshape all we do in school.
MERIT PAY - this all depends on how you determine who is worthy. If it is going to be based on the test scores of students, even if those are gain scores and not merely one-time snapshots, you run a real risk of the perversion of the classroom instruction into test prep. We are seeing aspects of this already as a result of the negative consequences under NCLB, and the results to real learning are rapidly becoming catastrophic.
STRONG NATIONAL STANDARDS - let me be as blunt as possible: who gets to design the standards and how you enforce the standards are each by themselves potentially explosive. In the former case, imagine things like the Kansas arguments on biological science writ large: you want to fight your way through a battle on evolution versus creationism /intelligent design? How about what the content of American history is? The biggest players in this might not be the churches and professional groups, but the providers of textbooks and other curricular materials - they want something that will make them money. All of the effort on this might be a distraction from addressing things like decrepit and overcrowded school buildings and classrooms, creating an environment not conducive to learning. As to enforcement: people like Diane Ravich are already arguing for national tests. Were we to move in that direction it has the potential to exacerbate the lack of equity in education that we currently have.
Because of the money these men are putting into education, people have no choice but to pay attention to what they say. Unfortunately, because they do not seem to really understand the nature of education. It is not merely the 60 million for this effort, it is the millions that Gates puts into small schools, or that Broad puts into training superintendents and principals his way.
The gentlemen are entitled to express their opinions on any subject that interests them. But there is something unbalanced that merely because they are very wealthy they get to have the loudest megaphones and the voices of those who are already dealing with the issues, and who perhaps have the most pertinent insights, are totally drowned out.
This is a personal statement, written in 20 minutes without stopping to edit. I may or may not have time to respond to comments- I will be leaving for school in about 15 minutes, and have both copying and a department meeting when I get there. That may not matter, because given my recent track record on diaries, this might simply scroll into oblivion with almost no traffic. No matter. As perhaps the most visible voice here on educational matter, I felt an obligation to offer some reaction to this news.
Do with this what you will.