Herb Kohl and Inspiration

March 19th, 2009

I’m feeling inspired lately.  This is partly due to the coming spring, with the growing warmth, the early flower shoots coming up, and the birds starting to migrate back north for the summer.  (Birding is another big interest of mine.  I’ll have to weave together birding and democratic education sometime – an interesting challenge!)  So spring is always an exciting time of year for me.

Yesterday that inspiration grew after seeing educator and prolific education writer Herb Kohl speak at Bank Street College in Manhattan (not to be confused with the current Wisconsin Senator of the same name).  I have several of Kohl’s books on my shelf, collected during my education book buying craze a bunch of years back when I began learning about non-conventional approaches to schooling and learning.  Yet his books were some of those I only skimmed and had not sat down and read.  Until now, that is.

Kohl gave a deeply personal and deeply moving talk, blending stories of his own schooling and teaching experiences with a powerful moral outrage at the current direction of educational practice and policy.  I jotted down this line, which I found particularly stirring:

“NCLB is nothing more than the manifestation of a moral deficiency in our attitude towards children.”

But how can we talk to Obama and others about how misguided we might think their policies are, one audience member asked?

Kohl responded by saying first that we cannot avoid the word accountability, that in fact that word and concept are completely fine and positive.  The question is not whether or not to hold schools and teachers and students accountable, but rather how and for what?

Kohl also emphasized that we have a moral imperative to expose those who are denying young people the opportunity to grow fully as a human being and supporting approaches that shrink children’s souls and minds.   We have the moral responsibility, he said, to point this out to Obama and other policy-makers.

I greatly appreciated that moral perspective, which often gets lost in the nitty-gritty details of talk about testing, standards, curriculum, grades, merit-pay, and other education battle-grounds.  Kohl’s point is that we ought not lose sight of the moral argument, that we are talking about “the lives of children” (the title of my favorite book about education, perhaps my favorite book of any type, by George Dennison), and that the educational approaches we practice will have a profound effect on the minds and emotions and spirits of young people.

Herb Kohl’s poetic stories, passion, and humility resonate with me, and give me great enthusiasm and inspiration to continue “to speak the truth to power with love,” as Cornell West has said and my friend and colleague Scott Nine has reminded me.

So while Herb Kohl’s books have been gathering dust on my shelf for several years, they are now down on my coffee table, their pages are open, and I am ready to sit down and get to know Mr. Kohl a bit better.

Posted in Democratic Education, Education Advocacy, Education Policy, NYC Education | No Comments »

Rewards for Students Questioned in NY Times Article

March 3rd, 2009

With the growing trend in school districts around the country to reward students and teachers based largely on test scores, it was with great excitement that I saw the following headline on the front-page of today’s New York Times’ Science section: “Rewards for Students Under a Microscope.”  This is especially good to see considering that the NY Times Editorial Page has consistently supported such rewards as good educational practice.

The article, by reporter Lisa Guernsey, opens with a great summary of the critique of rewards for students:

For decades, psychologists have warned against giving children prizes or money for their performance in school. “Extrinsic” rewards, they say — a stuffed animal for a 4-year-old who learns her alphabet, cash for a good report card in middle or high school — can undermine the joy of learning for its own sake and can even lead to cheating.

Guernsey then goes on to mention and quote some of the leading educators and psychologists who have long been publicizing the negative effects of rewards on students’ intrinsic motivation and enjoyment for learning, including education writer Alfie Kohn and University of Rochester psychology researchers Ed Deci and Richard Ryan. Here’s an excerpt from the Times article:

Research suggests that rewards may work in the short term but have damaging effects in the long term.

One of the first such studies was published in 1971 by Edward L. Deci, a psychologist at the University of Rochester, who reported that once the incentives stopped coming, students showed less interest in the task at hand than those who received no reward.

This kind of psychological research was popularized by the writer Alfie Kohn, whose 1993 book “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble With Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise and Other Bribes” is still often cited by educators and parents. Mr. Kohn says he sees “social amnesia” in the renewed interest in incentive programs.

“If we’re using gimmicks like rewards to try to improve achievement without regard to how they affect kids’ desire to learn,” he said, “we kill the goose that laid the golden egg.”

I particularly was interested in this study by Stanford psychologist Mark Lepper:

Why does motivation seem to fall away? Some researchers theorize that even at an early age, children can sense that someone is trying to control their behavior. Their reaction is to resist. “One of the central questions is to consider how children think about this,” said Mark R. Lepper, a psychologist at Stanford whose 1973 study of 50 preschool-age children came to a conclusion similar to Dr. Deci’s. “Are they saying, ‘Oh, I see, they are just bribing me’?”

If there is one thing that my work with young people in both conventional and freedom-based environments has shown me, it is that young people can very easily tell when adults have an ulterior motive for what they say or suggest to students.  And over time, this leads to young people becoming more and more wary of teachers and adults to the point that they find it hard to trust adults and even avoid their gaze, for fear that adults will tell them to do something else or make a critical judgment.

Yet as Guernsey states, it is clear whose influence now reigns in education circles:

.  . . many economists and businesspeople disagree [with the critiques of performance rewards], and their views often prevail in the educational marketplace.

The article presents this perspective, including quoting Roland Fryer, Harvard economist who served from 2007-2008 as Chief Equality Officer with the NYC Department of Education, during which time he promoted and designed student and teacher incentive programs.  (By the way, not to dismiss the contributions of economists, but should an economist be the sole person leading school improvement efforts? At the least an experienced K-12 educator ought to be part of the leadership, no?). Fryer makes the following point,

“We have to get beyond our biases,” said Roland Fryer, an economist at Harvard University who is designing and testing several reward programs. “Fortunately, the scientific method allows us to get to most of those biases and let the data do the talking.”

But what data?  And what other data might we be ignoring?

This is the essential point for me: that the issue here is not whether rewards increase test scores.  As Kohn, Deci, Ryan, and Lepper all point out, any short term gains (and one could question whether an increase in a dubiously-worthy multiple-choice test is actually a “gain” in anything meaningful) pale in comparison to the very real and long-term damage inflicted on many young people who are subjected to rewards systems: namely, that rewards systems very often are associated with diminished student interest and motivation for the activity or topic that was paired with a reward.  And there is a great deal of data to back this up (just Google “Ed Deci” or “Alfie Kohn” to find a ton).

So, sure, some students may increase their test scores when offered a reward for doing so, and certainly more students will take tests that have rewards tied to them, especially students from lower-income families, something Deci points out in his insightful comment, “‘There are suggestions of students making in the thousands of dollars,’ he said. ‘The stress of that, for kids from homes with no money, I frankly think it’s unconscionable.’”

But at what long-term cost to young people? Less interest and intrinsic motivation in the activity, increased stress and competition, even lower quality work, as Lepper’s study indicates.

This, then, is what happens when there is a dominant economic and business influence in education: increased student output through whatever means are necessary, without much regard to the fact that young people are human beings with personalities, emotions, and rights that ought not be dismissed or abused in the name of increased performance.

Yet now with the massive economic crisis stemming from the deplorable business practices of late, we should be ever-more critical and wary of economic- and business-driven reforms throughout society, most especially in the social sectors such as education.  I’ll end with a provocative comment from “a.r., Los Angeles” on the NY Times website from a reader of the article:

Isn’t the recent financial debacle proof enough that a) money as a motivator can lead to very bad things and b) economics does not provide a perfect model for human behavior? And why are poor kids our de facto guinea pigs in this social science experiment?

Indeed, why?

Posted in Education Policy, General Education News, Research and Reports, Youth Voice/Youth Rights | 2 Comments »

Arne Duncan, CNN, and Twitter

February 24th, 2009

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was on CNN Newsroom with Rick Sanchez shortly after 3pm today, answering questions from the public.  Kudos to Rick Sanchez and CNN for soliciting questions and using technology to gather them, including Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter.  I keep getting excited about the ways in which these participatory web tools can be used and are being used for public input and collaboration, open government, and more effective advocacy efforts.

So at around 2:30 today I got a tweet (that’s the name for the 160-max character entry on Twitter) saying that the public could suggest questions for Duncan by tweeting “@ricksanchezcnn” followed by a question.  In no time I went to Twitter.com, logged in, and saw that many people had already sent in their suggestions.  So I started tweeting and added two questions of my own, namely:

  1. What were your most powerful learning experiences in school or otherwise? What do your answers say about what schools need?
  2. How and when will DoE listen to the voices of young people, the real experts, in its work to improve schools and learning?

(For those of you counting, when you add @ricksanchezcnn, I had no more than a couple characters left to spare in each of those!)

True to his word, Rick started asking Duncan questions from the public (including one question from a college student) when the Secretary came on the show. Here’s a brief summary:

Q1:  Some schools are going to 4 day weeks, what do you think?

Duncan: I actually want to go the other way, to increase school time, not decrease it.

Q2:  What about the arts and music being eliminated from schools?

Duncan: This relates to the first question, in that we need more time to do the basics of math, reading, and writing, but we also need art, music, physical education, etc.  So we need more time to do all this, because “we need to give kids time to develop their skills and interests.”

Q3: (from a college student) Can we please get rid of NCLB?

Duncan: NCLB has done some things good but it also can do many things better.  It highlights the achievement gap and aggregates data, but it has been underfunded and not implemented well.  With the new stimulus plan Obama helped push through, over 100 billion dollars of additional funding is coming to education, which is great.

That was it.  Pretty short, mostly sound bites.  But I really appreciated the public forum that CNN chose for gathering questions, tapping into the changing expectations of the public to be involved in public policy conversations.

And the one quote from Duncan that I wrote in bold up there was a pretty good and empowering one, and I think I got it word for word.  Let’s remember that quote and hold Duncan and Obama to account for giving young people “time to develop their skills and interests.”

Posted in Education Policy, Obama and Education, Technology and Youth Democracy | 3 Comments »

News and Notes – Feb. 22, 2009

February 22nd, 2009

A few news and notes related to Democratic Education:

  • Parker Palmer, the wise teacher and author of many books on education and living including The Courage to Teach and Let Your Life Speak, was on Bill Moyers Journal this past Friday, February 20.  The conversation is one not to miss, touching on the tension between what is and what might be, the potential for social change movements, and what we can teach to bring about what might be.  You can watch a view of the conversation and read a transcript here on the Bill Moyers’ website.  (Thanks to David Leo-Nyquist for alerting me and others to this interview).
  • The Gotham Schools blog, a prolific blog largely about education in New York City,  reported on a research study that showed that rating a school with a D or F (all schools in NYC are now given such a mark, based largely on test scores) was correlated with fewer projects and essays after the rating was assigned and a greater emphasis on direct instruction.  The scary thing, as Gotham Schools reports, is that the authors of the study support this change.
  • On the Change.org Education Blog, Clay Burrell has written a great deal about Bill Gates’ recent appearance at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) gathering.  Check out the video of Gates’ talk, as well as Clay’s insightful commentary.  His most recent response also discusses how Nicholas Kristof has joined the Gates bandwagon, both talking about the necessity of “good teachers” and asserting that we can improve schools mainly through better teaching.  Clay echoes some of my own thoughts, questioning this notion of “good” in teaching and whether test score results ought to be the determinant of a good teacher (and therefore what is “good” in learning).
  • Finally, the New York City Student Union is holding a Student Government panel this Thursday, February 26 at 5pm at the UFT building (50 Broadway between Exchange and Morris in downtown Manhattan), to “develop connections between existing student governments and collaboratively create a basis of what a successful student government is and how it is run in different institutions.”  This is a great student organization, come and check it out.  Read more here.

Posted in Democratic Education, Education Policy, NYC Education, Research and Reports | No Comments »

Student Action at NYU

February 22nd, 2009

Friday afternoon ended what was a nearly 2-day student demonstration at New York University in Manhattan, coming just two months after a similar student action at The New School.  The students involved kept the updates coming on their TakeBackNYU website and on Twitter, attracting both supportive and critical comments from other students and the public near and far.   The TakeBackNYU site gives the history and background to the group, and offers a look into their demands for NYU, including budget transparency, research into socially responsible investing, the right of student workers and TAs to unionize, and financial support for Palestinian students.  The New York Times covered the event, though focusing largely on the eventual suspension of the students involved in the action.

A few thoughts come to mind:

  • Student voice in society – Students are indeed left out of much decision-making and higher-level discussions in educational institutions, both in higher education as well as high schools and K-12 education overall.  This goes along with an overall lack of youth involvement throughout society, which analysts such as Adam Fletcher and organizations like FreeChild and the National Youth Rights Association have discussed in great depth.  Therefore, my eyes are quickly drawn to instances where young people and/or adult allies are reacting to this repression of youth by taking action to ensure that young people’s voices are not ignored.
  • Satyagraha – I’m reminded of the words of a good friend and educator colleague, who says it may be that only a “revolutionary, nation-wide, non-violent, satyagraha-style, youth-led movement” can move our country into a place to rethink our educational practices, how we treat people in a democratic society, and how we respect this world that we live in.  Young people do comprise a huge section of our society, and while adult allies cannot ignore their own role in societal change or romanticize the impact of youth-led movements, young people may be able to draw attention to issues in ways that adults who have worked for years on these same issues cannot.
  • Web 2.0 tools and advocacy – The NYU and The New School student actions have impressed upon me the value of Web 2.0 tools in organizing and advocacy campaigns, both to broadcast to the public in real time the progression of events as well as to enable immediate public comment and dialogue about the situation.  Browsing through the TakeBackNYU blog posts and comments and twitter “tweets” (which you can search on Twitter with a term like “takebackNYU”), you can see how the students themselves used these tools to inform and mobilize supporters, including asking people to write letters and contact NYU officials.  Critics also used these forums to question or denounce the students’ actions, a good sign that the students leading the action practice what they preach in their own demands by welcoming criticism.
  • Means and ends – While at first the NYU students declared a commitment to non-violence and no destruction of property, they later revised the property clause in order to gain access to a balcony in the building they were occupying.  I don’t know enough about the situation to comment or judge.  But it does bring up the crucial conversation about what tactics and means are justified to achieve one’s goals. How people act in their efforts to bring attention to an issue may have an even greater impact on the result as the content of the message.
  • Responding to student action – As mentioned above, NYU’s response to the students’ action was to suspend the students involved and evict them from their dorms.  Meanwhile, representing a very different reaction, the final agreement at The New School included a clause that granted amnesty for all participants involved and serious consideration of and agreement to many of the students’ concerns.  My hope is that the NYU situation is so new that we will hear about forthcoming genuine discussion of the students’ issues as well as the broad concern about student voice in general.  But the immediate administrative response is not very inspiring.  Once again, I cannot judge whether or not the students were justified in all of their actions.  However, a quick dismissal of the students without a process to consider the situation and the history leading up to the recent actions seems unfortunate at best and trampeling on the rights of the students at worst.  Most of all, it would be a shame if NYU ignored the sensible concerns the students raise and continue to deny young people a voice in the educational institution to which they and their families give tens of thousands of dollars to every year.

Posted in Democratic Education, Education Advocacy, NYC Education, Youth Voice/Youth Rights | No Comments »

How to Talk to People about Democratic Education

February 15th, 2009

Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times op-ed columnist who has powerfully highlighted lesser-known fights for justice, including the conflicts in Sudan and the trafficking of girls and women around the world, has recently entered the national dialogue on education with some op-eds.  Kristof’s points are important for those in the democratic education world to consider, not only because of the platform he has as a columnist for the Times, but also because the arguments he makes reflect commonly-held assumptions about what is “good” education.  As Melia Dicker has written recently (thanks for the inspiration, Melia), we do our cause a huge disservice by responding with anger or dismissiveness rather than listening and understanding others’ perspectives, followed by responding with empathy, personal stories, and respectful questions and dialogue.

In his most recent column in today’s Times, Kristof speaks about education as the nation’s most crucial issue, and celebrates the influx of education funding that will result from the newly-passed $787 billion stimulus bill, of which $100 billion or more will go to education.  I agree with him that additional funding can do wonders: we need more funding in order to improve the awful conditions in so many schools that Jonathan Kozol and others have unearthed, as well as to prevent the firing of teachers and the increasing of class sizes (not to mention one of the most important funding aid needed in education, that of equitable funding for students in all districts so that communities with lower property tax intake can receive additional support – though that is highly controversial and not part of this spending bill).

But it is Kristof’s suggestions to solve the education crisis that I want to address.  He focuses on the need for better teachers, saying, “good teachers matter more than anything; they are astonishingly important.”  It would be hard for me to disagree, in that it surely matters a great deal what kind of adults are with our young people each day.  And from my own experiences, he does have a point that many of “America’s best teachers overwhelmingly teach America’s most privileged students.”  While I take issue with that generalization and know that many wonderful and committed teachers work with disadvantaged students, I also personally know a great many inspiring, passionate, and dedicated people who either work in private schools or have fled teaching altogether.

However, what Kristof may not have considered is that some of these dedicated educators have fled to less restrictive schools or from the teaching profession completely not because they lack a sense of duty to those less privileged, but because the standardization of the learning process and the high-stakes element of assessment – that is, the anti-learning, anxiety-provoking system of rewards and punishments doled out to teachers, students, and schools based largely on the multiple-choice test scores of students – that are required of public schools drives such creative and inspiring people away.  It seems entirely understandable that “good” teachers, even those deeply committed to social justice, who want to bring in their own personality and passions and to inspire the curiosity and independence of young people, would choose to work in a school that supports such personalization and flexibility in learning.  Or simply leave education.

Which makes me think that perhaps what is needed are not necessarily or only “good” teachers, but also a critical look at the impacts that the standardization and high-stakes testing movement is having on student motivation for learning and teacher motivation to teach.

And going even deeper, I’d like to talk to Kristof about how we determine what is a “good” teacher, or what it means to be a “successful” student or school.  I have seen some amazing teachers.  I think of one great teacher who would always take whatever time was necessary to have extensive conversations with each of her students about the students’ interests and help them determine the next steps they should take to pursue those interests, be they genetic engineering, music composing and performing, or computer programming (her school allowed for such open conversation during the school day).  And I think of an incredibly successful high school where students can teach classes to other students, choose from an exciting array of relevant classes, pursue independent study in topics of interest, take internships with businesses or artists in the neighborhood, and participate equally with teachers in the decision-making processes of the school.  [Some of these schools are listed here, and there are many other great schools and teachers doing similar great work around the country].

So when I think of “good” or “great” in education, I immediately think of such things as support for curiosity and individual interest, deep intellectual engagement, community participation in the governing of the school, and the development of strong relationships among students and adults.  And I find it odd that so many people, including progressive social justice fighters such as Kristof, look immediately for results on multiple-choice test scores to determine “success.”  Where in that determination is the individuality, the heart, the intellectual engagement, and the social sense that we want most for ourselves, for others, and supposedly for our children?

To be clear, I do believe that the development of reading and writing and math and other academic skills are important for success in life.  But, the question I’d like to respectfully ask those who make comments such as those by Kristof is, “At what cost?”  At what cost to young people do we focus on improving test scores?  What is the cost of adding more and more high-stakes tests?  Of longer school days filled with more test prep (such as that at the KIPP schools Kristof and others have been talking about lately)?  Of standardization in learning where individual interest must be put aside in favor of the same curriculum for all students?  Isn’t it possible to build environments that support young people to develop those academic skills while also developing self-determination, compassion for others, and deep critical thinking? At the very least, we need to consider answers to these questions.

Since the overwhelming majority of us went to traditional, conventional schools and currently send our children to such schools, we have long been immersed in the conventional wisdom about education, e.g. that high test scores = “good,” that rewards and punishments are beneficial, that everyone needs to learn the same thing at the same time.  So it is not a surprise to me that most people support such traditional ideas.  In fact, in high school I was as high-achieving, test-cramming of a student as you’d ever meet.  It was not until late college that I heard about other approaches to teaching and learning and realized that perhaps I had been wrong all along: that the stress and pressure from the school and from myself only hurt me and stifled my own sense of discovery about who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.

So my hope now is that we can help people like Nicholas Kristof and the many others out there who believe in freedom, personal responsibility, shared decision-making, and social justice, to bring those deeply-held democratic values into the education sphere and give young people the chance to develop as complete human beings, to find their spark and niche in this world, and to help build a more productive, sustainable, and peaceful society.

***

I crafted these thoughts here as a response to Kristof and his op-ed, but I wrote it in part to think about how we talk with others about democratic education, especially those who seem to reflect common assumptions that we find questionable.  In my response here I’ve tried to do follow a few principles:

  • Be empathetic: acknowledge the others’ perspective, let them know you are listening to them
  • Identify points of agreement
  • Bring in one’s own self and personal stories about education
  • Respectfully question and start a dialogue regarding commonly-held assumptions and points of difference. One thing to remember about this is to not dismiss the opinion with which you disagree, but to mention that you understand how and why they may hold such a belief (e.g. they went through conventional schooling themself).   Otherwise you run the risk of coming off as arrogant and may make the other person dislike you or simply stop listening.
  • Frame your position within a larger societal vision and grounded in democratic values. This deeper framework can connect with people when educational terminology such as student-directed learning and democratic decision-making may be too abstract or different from the norm to capture their attention and interest. Plus, it shows that democratic education exists within a long and broad fight for human freedom and that it has great potential to positively impact the direction that our society takes in the future.
  • Humor.  (Actually, I didn’t bring in this element – I focus so much on ideas that I find myself forgetting to bring in humor.  It’s something I want to work on and that I think can be a great part of discussing these often intense issues).

***

Well, that’s a start on this topic of how we talk to others about education.  I’ll write more here on this as time goes on, and would love to hear what others think.

…By the way, I want to salute Nicholas Kristof for his own respectful entry into the education arena, acknowledging in an online post his own lack of experience with this topic.  Which brings to mind another key element to bring to the dialogue: humility.  Thanks, Nicholas.

Posted in Democratic Education, Education Advocacy, Education Policy, Framing and Public Outreach, General Education News | 1 Comment »

Democratic Education in the Media

February 13th, 2009

Two great articles appeared yesterday about democratic education and student-directed learning.  Check them out.

1. The most popular newspaper in Oregon, the Oregonian, wrote a very good piece on the Village Free School, a 4-year old democratic free school in Portland.  The article gave a fair impression of the freedom and student-directed learning inherent in the school, while also broadening the picture to include the deeper goals of democratic education, describing the school as “trying to create its own unique blend of community, student choice, student responsibility and emotional and intellectual development.”

One sidebar included a well-written definition of democratic schools: “Students’ experience is based on many of the core values of a democratic society: participatory decision-making, individual freedom, personal responsibility and social justice. Students can make decisions of significance — even bad ones.”  I love that clear statement of how these schools are based on the values of our democratic society, and believe that is a great way to talk about this approach so that people new to democratic schools can understand what they are all about.

The sidebar also teased out a definition of a free school: “Students choose how they spend their time — in play, activities, classes. Staff are available to guide and help students explore what interests them. Lessons are offered but optional. Focus is given to students’ physical, social, emotional and intellectual well-being.”  Recently, I described schools such as Village Free School as part of the Democratic School Movement, so as to differentiate them from the broader term, Democratic Education. I’m hesitant to use the term “free school” as I think it makes it easy for critics to dismiss these schools as being permissively free.  But then again, perhaps we can reclaim the word freedom not just for adult-based human rights efforts but for young people as well.

2. I recently discovered the Freedom to Learn blog by Peter Gray, a research professor of Psychology at Boston College.  I’ve known about Peter Gray and his work for a bunch of years.  His research and articles about Sudbury Valley School and psychological learning theories supporting democratic education constitute some of the limited but powerful academic research into democratic schools and educational alternatives.

Peter’s blog post that appeared on February 12 focused on Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Emile, and how this book, often looked to as a pioneering contribution to progressive education theory and practice, contains several deep problems.  He describes that while the tutor seemingly gives the young student freedom to be and learn in his own way, the tutor is actually controlling and determining what the student does.  The text of Rousseau bears this out, it’s quite fascinating.  However, in an excerpt from an earlier lesser-known writing, Julie, Rousseau backs off that subtle controlling approach and has a mother explain how and why young people ought to be free to learn.  You can read both Emile and that excerpt from Julie in this Rousseau compilation on education.

And you might want to check the archives of Peter’s blog, or RSS or otherwise track it, he’s done some great writing about the philosophy, psychology, and practice of democratic education.

Posted in Democratic Education, Research and Reports | No Comments »

NYC Mayoral Control

February 13th, 2009

Working on my resolution to get more involved in the NYC dialogue on education and young people, I attended last week’s Manhattan version of the series of Public Hearings on Mayoral Control taking place in each borough this winter.  I barely got in, since by 9:45, when I arrived for the 10 o’clock hearing, the officials at City Hall were limiting admittance to those who were testifying.  A few non-testifiers like myself did find some helpful guards who graciously admitted us, even though we needed to stay in the overflow room.

img_0087.jpg

This is the view out the window of the overflow room on the 19th floor of 250 Broadway, looking to the tall Manhattan Municipal Building and the ornate City Hall building itself.

As for the 2 hours of the hearing I stayed for, I was highly impressed by the directness of the Assembly members who questioned Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, and highly unimpressed with Klein’s responses.  The hearing began with Klein and Deputy Mayor for Education Dennis Wolcott touting the success of the school system, according to increased test scores and the opening of hundreds of new schools.  Not even getting into the highly questionable aspects of those criteria in this post, it was clear right away that Klein and Mayor Bloomberg and company continue to believe that only they know what is best for the million plus students in the NYC public schools and how to implement it.

I found telling Klein’s comment, (I’m paraphrasing here), “Who else looks out for the lower-income students in this city?”  He and Bloomberg seem to place little faith and trust in local communities, students, and parents to own the educational planning for their own schools.  There were no specifics in reply to Assembly members’ repeated calls for greater parental involvement (nor did Klein or Assembly members mention student involvement in any way).   Klein kept repeating that the school system should be just like the fire, safety, and financial sectors in that the leaders for those sectors are appointed and have complete responsibility and accountability.  But does that make sense for the education of a million unique people in dozens of different neighborhoods across the city?

One of the more interesting exchanges occurred between Klein and Assembly member James Brennan about the NYC Panel for Education Policy, whose “responsibilities include approving standards, policies, objectives, and regulations that are directly related to educational achievement and student performance, as well as certain contracts, an estimated annual operating budget, and the DOE capital plan.”  The 13-member Panel includes a majority of 8 members who are appointed by the Mayor (and if that strikes you as an odd form of checks and balances, you are right! – check out what happened when the panel disagreed with the Mayor on stopping so-called “social promotion.”)

Here’s a paraphrased version of Brennan and Klein’s exchange:

 Brennan: Would it be a problem if the Panel for Education Policy disagreed with you?

Klein: Yes, because nothing would get done.

Brennan: So it’s bad if the group disagrees with you and has other ideas?

Klein: That’s the role of the legislature.  That’s where there should be meaningful checks and balances.

Brennan: But it’s not good to have internal checks and balances?

Kelin: That would be bad policy.

And other Assembly members noted to Klein that if parents and other members of the public disagree with what you (Klein) are doing, they have nothing to do except vote out the mayor in the next election.  Klein defended himself saying that the reason for consolidating power in the mayor and the chancellor was because of the “dysfunctional” local community school boards that especially hurt lower-income students.  I must admit to having an incomplete knowledge of the previous system of local boards before Mayoral Control, but I couldn’t think of a better way to stifle students’ individuality and excitement about learning than standardizing the learning process, dis-empowering students and teachers and parents, and judging students and teachers and schools based on the results of multiple-choice tests.

While I left before the Assembly members finished their dialogue with Klein, several hours of testimony by educators and members of the public followed, going well into the afternoon.  Here are some highlights:

Coming up, hearings in the Bronx (March 13) and Brooklyn (March 20).  More info here.

And here’s a picture of Klein testifying from the NY Times reporting of the Manhattan hearing.

Posted in Education Policy, NYC Education | No Comments »

Duncan Update (More of the Same?)

February 4th, 2009

I’ve been waiting to hear from Arne Duncan, the new Secretary of Education appointed by Obama, to get an idea of where he and Obama will be taking educational change in their administration.  Unfortunately, an Ed Week interview with Duncan gives the impression that Duncan will not be making any significant changes from where Bush and Clinton have been positioning education policy over the past two decades: more standardization, testing, and high-stakes accountability based on test scores.  To be fair, Obama and Duncan are rightly expanding that agenda with an emphasis on early childhood support, and the economic stimulus plans in the House and Senate indicate a great deal of money (a total of $140 billion) for education including much needed school construction and more funding for lower income students and students with disabilities.

But the rhetoric from the top sounds the same.  Here’s Duncan in the Ed Week interview:

 “With this fund [$ from the economic stimulus plan], we really have a chance to drive dramatic changes, to take to scale what works, invest in what works,” Mr. Duncan said in an interview last week, his first full week at the helm of the Department of Education. He said he would aim to “reward those states that are pushing very, very hard to get dramatically better.”

OK, I think I could agree with the sentiment – improving our schools.  But alarm bells should be ringing in everyone, because anyone who says “invest in what works” and “schools and students must get better” has to define what those simple words, “works” and “better,” mean.  And for Duncan it seems pretty clear:

Secretary Duncan said the Education Department would want to use the money in part to reward states—as well as districts and nonprofit groups—that have set rigorous standards linked to strong assessments and monitored by student-data systems.

In other words, continuing on the path of previous Education Secretaries Margaret Spellings and Rod Paige, Duncan equates “better” in education as “high test scores,” and “works” anything that leads to higher test scores.  Now, if better meant that more students ought to be happy with their schools, able to pursue their interests and curiosity, developing confidence and compassion, and that teachers are becoming more autonomy-supportive of their students, then I would be the first to stand behind Obama and Duncan and their new path forward.  But unfortunately, they seem caught in the trap that education can only be assessed through multiple-choice tests on academic achievement.  This is in part understandable, with the history of industrial-style conventional schooling in the U.S. that goes back generations, and with progressive groups and journalists, such as the New York Times in its editorial today on education, promoting the idea of national academic standards and rewards based on those tests.

But hope and change are pouring into the U.S. Government and throughout the United States, echoing around the world.  And while I applaud Obama and his administration for the stands they have taken, overturning many of the awful policies of the Bush era, the question appears: Why has that hope and change not come to the education arena?  Why aren’t the values of our democracy – freedom, participation, self-determination, collaboration, equity – more central to the practice of education?  And why do we continue to think that young people do not deserve to have a central voice in determining the direction of their own learning?

It is the continued duty of those of us embracing human rights and democratic values in schools to make the case for uniting those values with our educational practice.  And perhaps all is not lost.  Mike Klonksy notes that an early appointee of Duncan to the Education Department, Carmel Martin, may be someone who cares for smaller learning communities and a more progressive take on teaching and learning.  And with additional appointments coming, perhaps we shall see more encouraging signs.  It has been mainly just words so far, the action is yet to come.

Let’s keep the Obama/Duncan Ed Watch going and keep our hope alive.

Posted in Education Policy, Obama and Education | No Comments »

The Variety of Democratic Education: A word on terminology

January 30th, 2009

Before getting to the next section in the Variety of Democratic Education that I’ve been writing about, I wanted to mention a thought I had about terminology.

At first (tracing my thinking over the past months and even years – this dialogue goes back years) I was slightly uncomfortable defining democratic education as something broader than the definition used by the democratic schools I wrote about recently, which generally define democratic education as an approach in which students direct their own learning and where all school decisions are made democratically with equal voice for students and staff.  My first teaching job was at a democratic school, Albany Free School in upstate New York, and I still believe strongly in the practices of democratic schools and that young people deserve to direct their own learning.

Gradually, though, I came to realize that we cannot expect everyone to be “there” in terms of fully accepting the approach of a democratic school, no matter how right and natural it may seem to some of us working in and very familiar with this approach.  We must realize that the large majority of people have gone through very conventional forms of education and may never have heard about anything else. This does not mean that people cannot change to understand and support democratic schools and related approaches, and in fact based on personal experience I know that after conversations and direct experience observing these schools, many people can and do become strong supporters.

But it does tell me that it might be wise to use a broader definition of democratic education that more people can find accessible and which stays true to the core of democratic schools while also being more inclusive to other ways in which to implement human rights and democratic values in education.  Moreover, we will find more allies, collaborators, and openings to advance democratic education if we broaden the possibilities of what democratic education is in practice.

Therefore, I’ve been thinking about using the term democratic school movement to refer specifically to democratic schools like Albany Free School, Village Free School, Tokyo Shure and others, and use the broader term democratic education to describe over-riding pedagogical principles and practices that can be applied in many ways – in the democratic school movement, in great schools that don’t use the word “democratic,” by teachers running courageous student-centered programs in conventional schools around the country, by non-profit organizations, and more.

What I also like about “Democratic Education” is that the political nature of the term immediately connects our work in education to like-minded struggles in other sectors where people are working to bring the values of a democracy (freedom, equity, participation, responsibility, justice) into their realms, including the women’s rights movement, the labor movement, the peace and non-violence network, the struggle to expand health care coverage, the youth rights movement, gay and lesbian rights work, groups working against racial injustice, and the movement for environmental sustainability, among others.  We can find many more potential partners by connecting with these groups and other like-minded individuals, and working with them to create a more just, peaceful, democratic, and sustainable society.

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