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Old 11-13-2013, 06:17 PM
 
Location: Pennsylvania
5,725 posts, read 11,661,227 times
Reputation: 9828

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This is an opinion piece about educational reformers that gives voice to some of the concerns field-level educators have shared about the direction of reform over the last generation. While some will argue quite fairly that new perspectives are needed, it is very concerning that some of the most influential voices at the reform table are so woefully inexperienced in actually educating kids.

I used to think the results of ill-advised reform efforts were unintended consequences by people who meant well. Unfortunately, I now believe that a movement that has been underway to funnel public education money into private hands has been very intentional in how it has operated. The writer of this piece would likely agree.

Who are the educational reformers and why should anyone listen to them?
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Old 11-14-2013, 01:06 AM
 
118 posts, read 217,011 times
Reputation: 295
Meh, it doesn't bother me that many of the reformers don't have experience educating kids. Educators certainly have their own perspectives, which come from years in the trenches, but when you spend years dealing with the day to day micro-level issues, you often look at the micro-level fixes: let's tweak this, let's adjust that. People looking from the outside in might be better suited for a macro- view: we don't need to tweak, we need to start from scratch. Don't adjust, cut an entirely new cloth. Teachers are often worried about their jobs and individual districts, where reformers don't care about one or two jobs or schools, they're looking at the overall big picture, which may involve breaking some proverbial eggs - eggs that don't care to be broken, thank you very much. Different perspectives, but seeking different outcomes.
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Old 11-14-2013, 05:54 AM
 
Location: Volunteer State
1,243 posts, read 1,140,429 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thursdaymcgee View Post
Meh, it doesn't bother me that many of the reformers don't have experience educating kids. Educators certainly have their own perspectives, which come from years in the trenches, but when you spend years dealing with the day to day micro-level issues, you often look at the micro-level fixes: let's tweak this, let's adjust that. People looking from the outside in might be better suited for a macro- view: we don't need to tweak, we need to start from scratch. Don't adjust, cut an entirely new cloth. Teachers are often worried about their jobs and individual districts, where reformers don't care about one or two jobs or schools, they're looking at the overall big picture, which may involve breaking some proverbial eggs - eggs that don't care to be broken, thank you very much. Different perspectives, but seeking different outcomes.

Uh... No.

"To what?" you ask.

To your entire bloody post. It sounds good, looks good, uses all the right terms and catch phrases.

But wrong. Completely wrong.

Ford doesn't ask the accountants how to build a car. The engineers say, "this is how you build a car. We use these methods, in this order, etc. You guys must figure out a way to make it work in terms of budgeting." H-P doesn't ask the advertising how to build a computer. Microsoft doesn't ask Human Resources to develop software. Admitting doesn't tell the doctors how to conduct lobotomies at the hospital. It doesn't take many brain cells to understand that if you want some advice on how to fix things, make them better, find more efficient methods, etc., you ask the people that design it, put it together on the assembly floor - the people that actually work with it on a daily basis. And while many principals, system directors and board members were once (might have been) teachers, their main focus - for many years, if not decades - has been administrative/managerial in nature. We've actually watched once as a former principal (for over 15 years) go back to the classroom as a partial retirement plan, and quit after 5 weeks. He couldn't handle it, and made the comment, "I truly have forgotten what it's like in the trenches. Things have changed so much."

But as a teacher for two decades, I can never recall being asked to sit on any advisory board, never been asked to volunteer my time to give feedback on potential reform plans. And while I know I'm a better-than-average teacher, I also can realize that my input might not be wanted for reasons I can't/won't see. But... I've also never heard of any other teachers in my school or system being asked the same thing, and I have sought them out multiple times over the years. Very few - if any - working teachers are being given a change to work on "reform."

The issue I believe is that these people pushing their own reform plans consider themselves educated people, hence they are familar with education, and thus, "know how to educate."

Total Bilge.

Anyone who's sat on the teacher's side of the desk for any length of time knows that there is a tremendous difference of mind-set from one side of the desk to the other. Any first-year teacher that has any self-awareness at all will tell you that their college education really didn't do much to prepare them for that teacher's seat. Only experience, perseverance, discussions with the more experienced, compassionate teachers for help and advice, a self-awareness of their own limitations and faults (and the desire to work on them), and a few other characteristics I'm sure I've left out - makes a person know how to teach.

Not their business acumen.
Not their organizational abilities (although this is handy, some of the better teachers I've see/had/worked with were less than stellar here).
Not their models &/or plans.

But why in the H#ll are we listening to these people instead of Ms. Johnson, that just got a classroom full of kids to really understand long division? Or Mr. Phillips, that actually made US History come alive for his students that once thought it was boring? Or Mrs. Reece that manages to average over 80% of her students passing the AP biology exam every year? Or the thousands of other current teachers that have managed - in spite of the current systems - to have success in their classroom?

Again, why are we asking the accounting office employees to help us retool the assembly line instead of the engineers that build and maintain it and/or the floor workers that use it daily?

P.S. - I hate the assembly line analogy of education, as anyone who actually knows anything about teaching - you know, those that do it daily for a living - knows that its a bad one, even though those that think they now better still try to push it and other business models on us. But I used the analogy to point out the obvious errors of tasking the wrong people to "fix the problem."
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Old 11-14-2013, 06:48 AM
 
Location: Pennsylvania
5,725 posts, read 11,661,227 times
Reputation: 9828
I think there is a lot of truth to the notion that teachers think at the micro level and that sometimes fresh eyes are needed to look take a macro perspective. I also agree that many teachers are concerned about their jobs, which puts them in the same company as almost every working adult. But teachers are also by and large concerned about student learning and the 25 or 30 or 140 individuals they encounter each day - successful students make for a much more pleasant working atmosphere as well. The problem is that some of the influential 'reformers' are less worried about learning outcomes and are more driven by economics. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't want education to be about profit.

I know that one anecdote is not research, but for illustrative purposes, look at the iPad rollout in the LA school district and all the snafus in making that happen. I'm not alone in believing that program was undertaken more to move a boatload of the school budget into the hands of the companies that sell and service the product and the infrastructure than to improve learning outcomes for students.
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Old 11-14-2013, 08:21 AM
 
2,991 posts, read 4,266,408 times
Reputation: 4270
The idea that someone who lacks either macro or micro knowledge could be taken seriously as an educational reformer is so incompetent that it is frightening. Someone with useful ideas needs knowledge at both levels. There are people with both macro and micro knowledge, but not many. Probably the worst would-be educational reformers are fad-surfing blowhards drawn from the corporate-executive ranks.
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Old 11-14-2013, 08:55 AM
 
Location: Great State of Texas
86,052 posts, read 84,118,875 times
Reputation: 27718
That can be said for many fields.

Someone with lots of book knowledge and little to no experience in the field only sees success with every proposal.
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Old 11-14-2013, 11:45 AM
 
2,612 posts, read 5,562,796 times
Reputation: 3965
Quote:
Originally Posted by Starman71 View Post
Uh... No.

"To what?" you ask.

To your entire bloody post. It sounds good, looks good, uses all the right terms and catch phrases.

But wrong. Completely wrong.

Ford doesn't ask the accountants how to build a car. The engineers say, "this is how you build a car. We use these methods, in this order, etc. You guys must figure out a way to make it work in terms of budgeting." H-P doesn't ask the advertising how to build a computer. Microsoft doesn't ask Human Resources to develop software. Admitting doesn't tell the doctors how to conduct lobotomies at the hospital. It doesn't take many brain cells to understand that if you want some advice on how to fix things, make them better, find more efficient methods, etc., you ask the people that design it, put it together on the assembly floor - the people that actually work with it on a daily basis. And while many principals, system directors and board members were once (might have been) teachers, their main focus - for many years, if not decades - has been administrative/managerial in nature. We've actually watched once as a former principal (for over 15 years) go back to the classroom as a partial retirement plan, and quit after 5 weeks. He couldn't handle it, and made the comment, "I truly have forgotten what it's like in the trenches. Things have changed so much."

But as a teacher for two decades, I can never recall being asked to sit on any advisory board, never been asked to volunteer my time to give feedback on potential reform plans. And while I know I'm a better-than-average teacher, I also can realize that my input might not be wanted for reasons I can't/won't see. But... I've also never heard of any other teachers in my school or system being asked the same thing, and I have sought them out multiple times over the years. Very few - if any - working teachers are being given a change to work on "reform."

The issue I believe is that these people pushing their own reform plans consider themselves educated people, hence they are familar with education, and thus, "know how to educate."

Total Bilge.

Anyone who's sat on the teacher's side of the desk for any length of time knows that there is a tremendous difference of mind-set from one side of the desk to the other. Any first-year teacher that has any self-awareness at all will tell you that their college education really didn't do much to prepare them for that teacher's seat. Only experience, perseverance, discussions with the more experienced, compassionate teachers for help and advice, a self-awareness of their own limitations and faults (and the desire to work on them), and a few other characteristics I'm sure I've left out - makes a person know how to teach.

Not their business acumen.
Not their organizational abilities (although this is handy, some of the better teachers I've see/had/worked with were less than stellar here).
Not their models &/or plans.

But why in the H#ll are we listening to these people instead of Ms. Johnson, that just got a classroom full of kids to really understand long division? Or Mr. Phillips, that actually made US History come alive for his students that once thought it was boring? Or Mrs. Reece that manages to average over 80% of her students passing the AP biology exam every year? Or the thousands of other current teachers that have managed - in spite of the current systems - to have success in their classroom?

Again, why are we asking the accounting office employees to help us retool the assembly line instead of the engineers that build and maintain it and/or the floor workers that use it daily?

P.S. - I hate the assembly line analogy of education, as anyone who actually knows anything about teaching - you know, those that do it daily for a living - knows that its a bad one, even though those that think they now better still try to push it and other business models on us. But I used the analogy to point out the obvious errors of tasking the wrong people to "fix the problem."
This says it all. I also find it odd that someone thinks that a politician or businessman with no educational experience knows more not only than teachers, but also more than superintendents, school boards, researchers, professors of education, and all the other people who have a complete understanding of education backed by decades of research. It's like saying I don't know a thing about astrophysics, but my fresh macro-perspective is exactly what we need to build a rocket ship and fly it to Jupiter.
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Old 11-14-2013, 01:39 PM
 
Location: New York NY
5,508 posts, read 8,690,875 times
Reputation: 12663
Theoretically at least, there is nothing wrong with high-level policy being set be people who haven't set foot in a classroom. To use the above metaphor, it's the difference not between accountants and assembly-line workers, but between engineers and assembly-lines workers. One group looks at the big picture seeing how all the parts come together and how they'll work with each other, while the other group acutally puts their plans into action and builds the car. You don't have to be a mechanic to design an engine.

But how it works out in practice in the educational system is, I'll admit, often woefully different. Pick the wrong group of policy makers who don't want to bother getting input from teachers is defintnely a huge mistake because each group--policy-makers and teachers--knows different things. A good district administrator can see big picture stuff that teachers cannot. LIkewise, a good teacher can point to flaws in overarching plans that adminsitrators, mayors and superintendants can miss. Nobody knows it all, although an arrogant city administration or an arrogant teachers union (and there are plenty of both) would have you believe that they do.

Educational debates are now so polarized I'm not sure the two sides can develop the necessary consensus, where administrators set goals in alliance with teachers and don't micro-manage classooms, while teachers open up to the possibility that the way they've been doing things doesn't always work, and sometimes even with the best of intentions, fails miserably. Will either side ever be able to listen -- and learn -- from the other? I have my doubts. I just hope our kids don't end up caught in the crosshairs any more than they already are.
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Old 11-14-2013, 07:51 PM
 
4,352 posts, read 4,191,761 times
Reputation: 5776
One key difference between educating kids and manufacturing cars (or anything else) is that the car parts don't actively resist being turned into cars. In my inner-city high school's classrooms, up to half of the students are actively resisting all efforts to educate them according to the standards being set for them by those who don't differentiate between manufacturing processes and human ones. In fact, the more data-driven a particular outlook, the less appreciation for the fact that the process depends on human children who have their own agendas. After nearly three decades in the classroom, I find that it is much easier to teach the curriculum after you have succeeded in being able to teach the children. In other words, you have to treat the children like people, not machines, in order to get them to do what you want them to do. If you treat them like machines, they break down, just like copiers do when you mistreat them and then rely on them to do your bidding.
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Old 11-15-2013, 05:40 AM
 
Location: Volunteer State
1,243 posts, read 1,140,429 times
Reputation: 2159
Quote:
Originally Posted by lhpartridge View Post
One key difference between educating kids and manufacturing cars (or anything else) is that the car parts don't actively resist being turned into cars. In my inner-city high school's classrooms, up to half of the students are actively resisting all efforts to educate them according to the standards being set for them by those who don't differentiate between manufacturing processes and human ones. In fact, the more data-driven a particular outlook, the less appreciation for the fact that the process depends on human children who have their own agendas. After nearly three decades in the classroom, I find that it is much easier to teach the curriculum after you have succeeded in being able to teach the children. In other words, you have to treat the children like people, not machines, in order to get them to do what you want them to do. If you treat them like machines, they break down, just like copiers do when you mistreat them and then rely on them to do your bidding.

That was the reason for my postscript: to point out the fallacy of the analogy. The comparison was mainly to show that accountants/HR are not asked to fix the problems or give solutions for improvements. It's the guys/gals that do it every day that are. But not for education.

But as you pointed out - and some reformers actually believe otherwise - It's very difficult to put together a car on the assembly line when the parts don't always show up, or on time. The parts are not uniform (i.e. they aren't all the same size, shape, durability, etc.), they come unprepared (hungry, sleep-deprived, w/o materials, etc.), they actively resist being assembled, etc. But Big Business seems to think they can turn education into such a program.

This illustrates the problem with reform: those (well, some) who don't know what they're talking about - those with no experience educating k-12 children - are the ones trying to make this work.

Again, my auto analogy was to make clear that educators are the ones that should be asked how to fix the problems, not the politicians, big business owners, etc.
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