Hello Progressive Education Fans!
The linky thing down there near the bottom is from Dr. Diane Ravitch. She, in addition to being the most acclaimed educational researcher in America, as if that is not a big enough job, keeps an eye on the most informed and astute blogs about education policy in the United States.
It is true. The Democrats have systematically denigrated, belittled, scolded and chased away (fired) their strongest and most eloquent supporters, the students, teachers and parents, in the process of genuflecting to a few heavy hitters in the Electoral Politics Campaign Donation League. “A League of Their Own,” doncha know. The Race to the Top was only the cherry on the Corporate Reform Cake (tm), starting with “Back to Basics” and Competencies begun by the Reaganauts in 1982. The photo above is a fairly accurate, showing how the 1982 “reform process” worked, “Back to Basics” and “Competency Based Standards Learning.” We KNOW how much Reagan liked teachers. They had UNIONS. Bad word. Baaaad. Bad Bad. Blech.
Today we have moved on from obvious Datsun bashing, especially since they are now called Nissans. (Hmmm. Maybe that was a Corolla. Never mind.) Wave after wave of “reform” has been foisted on the public, costing billions of dollars, countless hours out of the classroom, administrative training time and inservice coordination. The Reform of the Moment comes, becomes The Most Important Thing You Will Ever Do in Your Life Ever, and then, is shown to be lacking in, well, education. The reforms are always “machine learnable.” They are always able to be bottled, reproduced, made into an algorithym and faultlessly applied, and everyone MUST do it. Of course, the interest factor among students is nil at the start, and soon thereafter, the teachers are saying, “You know, I have this really interesting unit I did a few years ago involving all kinds of activities and experiments and fun hands on stuff. You guys think we should do that as a break from “The Program?” Yeahhhhhhhhhhhh!
We do not capture the interest of students with elaborate presentations of in-class rubrics, Standards written in a dry, wordy, nerdy and clinical monotone (Language 2: Students will use written conventions in a grade-appropriate way in all modes writing; narrative, expository and persuasive. etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum get me some dramamine I think I am gonna be seasick…..) of assessment schemes and schemas and Edu-Speak-Jargon for Formative and Summative Accountability (usually spelled in all Caps) as if we are Yelling. Because you have to yell at teenagers when you are required to spend a majority of your class day as if you are teaching an Education or Business 102 Class in Eastern State U. It’s not 101, because we don’t teach that. We expect that you are ready for 102 having heard so much Edu-Speak-Jargon already in your young life, so lets GO! And yes, there will be a quiz. It counts.
News Item: NO ONE LIKES EDUCATION CLASSES OR BUSINESS CLASSES EXCEPT PRECIOUS DEMOCRATIC COLLEGE PROFESSORS, PRECINCT CHAIRS WHO ARE ALL GOODY-TWO-SHOES AND THREE SECONDS AWAY AT ANY MOMENT FROM JOINING A NUNNERY WITH THEIR ACOLYTES AND WANNABES! Okay? Got it? Especially teenagers and preteenagers. They like a lot of things, but NOT THAT. Nobody likes you guys, you curriculum developers, you State Mandate Buzzkills, you Technocrats with Jacksons falling out of your Armani suit, you blue haired starched collar “young grandma” with the oversized American Flag lapel pin on your 1973 Poly Sky Blue Leisure Suit, but you can rule by fear if you want to. It just makes everything so.. medieval. And coerced. Not fun. Try that on a teenager. In his classroom. You will soon be crazy or sitting silently in your chair giving out worksheets by the end of the second week. Teach? Why bother? Do you LIKE being ignored AND ridiculed?
We have lost the interest of our students with this claptrap Rube Goldberg mechanistic model of edumacational faux-logical progressions. By this time, its as much fun as solving a Rubics Cube after you have done it blindfolded in your sleep a hundred times. Its not.
And, too, again, in case you didn’t hear it the first time, THIS IS NOT A BUSINESS. It does not conform to the usual management style(s) of the moment, and in fact, you will have to admit, even your Business does not conform to the usual Business Management style(s) of the moment. The inputs and outputs are all fuzzy, moving targets and filled with variables you can’t see, which change, depending on good will, free will, open will, and willpower. It would be as if the Economic system is actually a subset of a biological system from bacteria to megafauna, complex organisms co-existing and growing and adapting in an environment, which changes.
OH! SURPRISE! IT IS LIKE THAT!! It is NOT a machine. It is a growing organism.
The closest analog to Education is NOT COMPUTING. Its GARDENING. Or Forest Management if you like, since these organisms live to about the same age as harvestable Douglas Fir trees. Just for comparison's sake. Not that they are harvested. Its a metaphor. Well, kids are not harvested literally. They are harvested for their hours on earth, their energy, their good will and skill, but let’s get back to that later.
Back to the subject. You get my mood. If the "policy wonks" and their allied Goody Goodmyrtles and Goodfredericks would look up from their spreadsheets and data driven points of reference long enough to see it, they would see the list of horribles they have visited on Educators; smart, thinking, articulate liberal and progressive DEMOCRATS, most of them, partly anyway... that bears repeating.. working class, but smart and educated, and eloquent, for the most part, and did I mention INFLUENTIAL IN THEIR COMMUNITY, DEMOCRATS! since No Child Left and Back to Basics and Competency Based Reform and now Teaching the Core Standards.
WE HAVE, in fact, BEEN RENAMING THE SAME BEAT-UP-YOUR-KIDS’-TEACHER REFORM PLAN OVER AND OVER AND OVER since 1985, with the same insane result. Flat scores. Flat attitudes. Flat personalities. Flat growth. Flat tire. Flat. Flat Flat. I cannot say it enough. The highest turnover rate of any profession in America, and arguably the most important. Students who HATE school and are not troubled to tell you. I would hate what they have been through as well, and I am a schoolie.
But, please read someone eloquent here, and especially the list of horribles generated by squashing teachers and principals who are actively, daily, hourly, PRACTICING their PROFESSION in public FOR Democrats, Moderate Republicans, Patriots and Anarchists, and for Democracy, and who actually KNEW WHAT THE HELL THEY WERE DOING before the Accountabilty Purges and Value Added Student Score Pogroms started. And I don’t say that part in jest.
https://dianeravitch.net/2017/06/26/mark-naison-how-the-democratic-party-fatally-damaged-itself-by-attacking-public-education/
Mark Naison says it much better than I can. However, I do intend to make this a Diary in Daily Kos and watch the fur fly. The place is LOUSY with Techno Business Philanthro-Capitalist HedgeHog “reform” people DYING to reform SOMEONE ELSE because, hey, how hard can Edumacation be? Even Bill Gates does it, and fails at it, but Let ME give it a throw with a few million clams.
So I expect to get roasted to death at that Most Democratic of all Democratic Blogs in America. This will prove that Dkos are about as Progressive as GW Bush, and Arne Duncan, Rahm Emmanuel, and Bloomy Bloomberg, again, as if we needed any more evidence.
Happy Summer Vacay Days! We’re Baaaaack!