"We do not provide equal access to a high-quality education to every child in this nation. And even though we have made strides in this direction, we have miles to go before this task is complete. There is a pressing need to redesign our schools to meet the demands of a global 21st century society in which knowledge and technology are changing at a breath-taking pace, and new forms of education are essential for individual and societal survival. Yet, our current policy strategies are constraining rather than enabling the educational innovation our school system needs. Indeed, the path we are pursuing promises to leave our schools, as well as our children, behind."
That is a quotation from a new report entitled "Democracy at Risk: The Need for a New Federal Policy in Education" that was released yesterday by the Forum for Education and Democracy on the 25th anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," the federal report on education which initiated much of what is wrong in our educational policy.
Please keep reading.
The report was written by Linda Darling-Hammond, George Wood, Beth Glenn, Carl Glickman, Wendy D. Puriefoy, Sharon Robinson, Judith Browne-Dianis, John Goodlad, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Deborah Meier, Larry Myatt, Pedro Noguera, Nancy Sizer, Ted Sizer, and Angela Valenzuela, the convenors of the Forum. They are some of the most notable names in education, authors of many books and recipients of may honors. The report argues strenuously for a new approach to education at the Federal level.
The forward is available online here, and I offer it below (and if you go to the link you can obtain pdf's of the press release and the entire report for download).
The welfare of our nation rests heavily upon our system of public education. We strive to provide all of our children with equal access to a high-quality, free education because we know that without it, our democratic way of life will be at peril. As Thomas Jefferson once said, "If Americans desire to be both ignorant and free, they want what never has been and what will never be." Indeed, it is our democratic system of governing, based upon the twin pillars of equal rights and responsibilities, which requires we have a system of public education.
We continue to fall short of this most basic democratic commitment. We do not provide equal access to a high-quality education to every child in this nation. And even though we have made strides in this direction, we have miles to go before this task is complete. There is a pressing need to redesign our schools to meet the demands of a global 21st century society in which knowledge and technology are changing at a breath-taking pace, and new forms of education are essential for individual and societal survival. Yet, our current policy strategies are constraining rather than enabling the educational innovation our school system needs. Indeed, the path we are pursuing promises to leave our schools, as well as our children, behind.
For this reason, The Forum for Education and Democracy has chosen the 25th anniversary of the publication of A Nation at Risk, the last clarion call for federal attention to educational policy, to call for a new federal role in supporting our schools.
As practitioners, researchers, and policy analysts who have long been involved in developing successful schools, we are gravely concerned about the inability of the current federal role to support the breadth, depth, and quality of education our children need for a 21st century life — one in which they will need to solve problems we cannot yet fully envision, using knowledge and technologies that have not yet been invented. Signs abound that the path we have taken in educational reform has led us astray. Inequities in educational opportunity have increased, public commitment to democracy has waned, the scope of education has narrowed, and our rankings internationally in educational achievement and attainment have fallen. These indicators suggest that we are not making the strategic investments in our schools that both democratic life and the new learning economy require.
We have failed to meet the goals our leaders set for education two decades ago. Now, we must move forcefully as a nation in a more purposeful and powerful direction. Based on our combined experience, we present the following analysis and recommendations that call for new leadership that will take on the fundamental issues of equity and investment in innovation that only our federal government can tackle. In so doing, we believe federal policy can enable local educators and communities to create the educational opportunities that will provide every child with the skills needed for a life of citizenship, intellectual growth, and economic productivity — the skills they must have if our democracy is to survive.
There is little doubt that our public schools are in perilous condition. This perilous condition goes far beyond any concern about test scores, or as evaluation of our comparative position versus other nations. Yes, it is valid to be concerned that our students are prepared to be meaningfully and productively involved in the developing economy, but it goes beyond that. Let me repeat the end of the penultimate paragraph with some, because it is critical: Inequities in educational opportunity have increased, public commitment to democracy has waned, the scope of education has narrowed, and our rankings internationally in educational achievement and attainment have fallen. These indicators suggest that we are not making the strategic investments in our schools that both democratic life and the new learning economy require. Inequities in opportunty, commitment to democracy, democratic life. Of these three key ideas far too often we at best give lip service to the idea of addressing the inequity, but then only insofar as we consider how to raise test scores. We need so much more.
I want to quote from a posting that Craig Cunningham did at the Education Policy Blog, a group blog in which he and I both participate, because it provides a superb summary of the contents of the report. Craig begins by explaining the release of the report, the authors, and gives the quote with which I began. He goes on like this:
While the report notes that some innovations have been fostered "on the margins," such as the New Technology High School in Sacramento, California, the overall approach has been to maintain "a compliance-andcontrol regulatory approach that holds the bulk of the system in place, trapping most schools within the constraints of a factory model designed a century ago for another purpose."
The report specifically attacks the No Child Left Behind approach that uses "compliance checklists" instead of true reform initiatives. "Rather than providing access to new programs, technologies, and supports that could dramatically change schools and communities, the law has been managed in ways that push schools back to out-of-date notions of learning and stifle the use of new technologies."
[One example of the ways that NCLB stifles the use of new technologies is the ways in which it forces many schools--particularly those with high numbers of poor and minority children--to focus the curriculum exclusively on "drill" in so-called "basic skills," rather than the type of higher-order thinking tasks and inquiry-based problem solving that new technologies foster.]
The report cites statistics showing that reading improvement under NCLB has been slower than before the law was enacted, that high school graduation rates have started to decline again, that pverty rates among children in the US are the highest in the industrialized world, that the US ranking on international tests has plummeted, that "trust" and "community involvement" among people in the US is in rapid decline, and that increased expenditures on the prison system have far out-paced increases in spending on education.
The report draws a link between the poor quality of education in the US and the poor quality of democracy:
"The challenge is clear: Improving education and improving democracy go hand in hand. We need to build upon the natural curiosity of children to help them make sense of the world. We need to arm them with the knowledge and skills, as well as the resourcefulness and inventiveness, that will be required to invent solutions to tomorrow's problems. We need to give them the tools to live their lives respectfully and collaboratively with others, building communities that can tackle the challenges that lie ahead. We must think
of education as more than a collection of standardized tests if we are to reverse the decline of democracy and create a stronger fabric for "We, the people" among the next generation of citizens."
The report lays out four major priorities that a new Federal policy on education should include:
Federal Priority #1: Pay Off the Educational Debt
* Link federal education support to state progress toward opportunity to learn
* Meet the federal obligation for funding programs for students with special needs
* Invest in high-quality pre-school and health care that enable students to come to school ready to learn.
Federal Priority #2: Develop a World-Class Cadre of Skilled Educators
* Create incentives for recruiting teachers to high-need fields and locations.
* Strengthen teachers' preparation by focusing on how to teach diverse
* learners, evaluating teacher performance, and creating professional development schools.
* Launch teaching residency programs in high-need communities.
* Support mentoring for all beginning teachers.
* Create sustained, practice-based, collegial learning opportunities for teachers.
* Develop teaching careers that reward, develop, and share expertise.
* Mount a major initiative to prepare and support expert school leaders.
Federal Priority #3: Support Educational Research, Development, and Innovation
* Document and disseminate promising practices.
* Invest in the development of higher quality standards and assessments for genuine accountability.
* Develop data bases, shared measures, and tools to advance educational practice.
Federal Priority #4:Engaging Local Communities
* Foster family engagement in school life and school improvement.
* Provide for genuine community involvement in school improvement processes.
* Place schools at the center of community education.
I have sent information about this report to all those Hill staffers on education with whom I have ongoing contact, as well as to the Democratic congressional candidates I know, including several members of this community. I would think others here might consider passing on the information as well. You of course could pass on the link to this diary, or the link I have provided to the forward at the forum's website. It would be appropriate to ensure that state level policy members, in legislatures, governor's offices, and state boards and departments of education, also are made aware of the report. It also would not be inappropriate to pass it on to similar official at local levels.
Our democracy is certainly at risk. And as the Congress has been unable to make progress in reforming the worst aspects of No Child Left Behind we see the federal Department of Education under Secretary Spellings moving ahead unilaterally to implement ideas that have a high probability of further damaging both our public schools and the future of our democracy - by acting administratively now Spellings hopes to lock in approaches that would therefore become difficult if not impossible for a future administration to easily undo. If that sounds remarkably familiar, it is the common modus operandi of this administration, most evident in how it has tried to lock in a commitment to remain in Iraq through executive agreements not submitted for Senatorial ratification and by building massive structures in the Green Zone and permanent bases out in the countryside.
I encourage you to visit the Education Policy blog and comment on Craig's post. I also encourage you to browse the other threads while you are there - we often have thoughtful discussions on a variety of topics.
In the meantime, clearly understand this: if we do not move swiftly to ensure the viability of productive public schools that value and truly teach democracy, all we strive for in our political endeavors will be for naught. That is how critical this issue is to our future.
Peace.