Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The Fordham Foundation’s Checker Finn looks at the budget austerity facing U.S. schools in the new Education Gadfly, and the conventional wisdom that any reductions are bound to damage the quality of schooling. He lays out and skewers a half dozen arguments typically used to combat cuts:
We see signs of the “Washington Monument gambit,” i.e., the threat by the National Park Service that, if it doesn’t get more money, it won’t be able to keep one of the Capital’s foremost tourist attractions open for visitors. Its counterpart in public education is to say that, if we have to cut our budget, we’ll have to (take your pick) eliminate sports, increase class size, abbreviate the school year, scrap gifted education, end after-school programs, curb college counseling, close the school library, etc., etc. That’s how school systems think about budgets: in terms of “programs” and “services,” not efficiencies, productivity, or such tradeoffs as personnel versus technology.
The kicker comes at the end, when it’s revealed that Finn’s essay is a barely updated version of a previous piece he wrote five years ago–the last time there were widespread budget cuts.
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When one of her 6th grade students remarked “you can’t run for office in this country unless you’re a millionaire or you know a lot of millionaires,” Nevada public school teacher Tierney Cahill insisted that in a democracy anyone can run for office. Her students dared her to prove it–by running herself.
Looking at twenty-eight intent faces, I knew that I had just been handed a test. Would this grown-up be as contradictory and hypocritical as so many of the adults and personalities in their lives? If our country worked the way I had said it did, and if normal people could—and should—be involved in government, then as their teacher I shouldn’t have a problem stepping up to do what they’d asked. It was as if they were saying, “Either you are what you say you are and you believe that whole line you gave us, or you’re totally full of crap, and we’re going to find out right now.” In many ways, our roles of teacher and pupil had suddenly switched. What I say is really going to matter, and I’d better think fast, I realized.
Thoughts rocketed through my brain like simultaneous fireworks explosions.
Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into?
Do I believe what I told them? Or am I simply a mouthpiece for the establishment? Are these kids going to look back and resent me someday when they think about their teacher’s rosy, half-honest introduction to politics?
She ran, and ended up winning the Democratic primary in Reno, with her students acting as her campaign managers. Her new book, Ms. Cahill for Congress tells the story.
This has all the makings of the next big ”hero teacher” movie. No surprise then to learn that Hollywood is already all over it. Halle Berry will play Ms. Cahill.
Why does the answer to improving student achievement always seem to come down to lengthening the school day and adding more professional development, asks Philadelphia schoolteacher Christopher Paslay. “I’ve been teaching in Philadelphia for 12 years, and I still don’t agree with this philosophy,” he writes in an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer. “More isn’t always better.”
There are three parts of the education equation: teachers, students and parents. All three of these must be up and running at a minimum level for education to take place. Just as a car needs a working battery and transmission to operate properly, so a school system needs the support and cooperation of parents and students as well as teachers. If parents and students don’t get actively involved, how will extending the school day improve academic achievement? If education isn’t made a priority in children’s homes, what will requiring more professional development for teachers accomplish?
Accountability absolutists will dismiss Paslay’s take as an exercise in excuse-making, but his point that teachers are “only one part of a complex instructional ecosystem” will ring true to teachers. Paslay’s Rx includes reducing class sizes in poorly performing schools, tuition reimbursement for teachers who agree to teach in failing schools, and most pointedly, “stop demoralizing teachers by making us the eternal scapegoats. In other words, hold parents and the community accountable, too.”
Do more of the sort of thing former Mayor John Street and former Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson did in 2006, when they gave summonses to 6,000 parents of truant schoolchildren, bringing them to Temple’s Liacouras Center to talk about the importance of getting their sons and daughters to school.
Some people have a way with words. Othurs not weigh haf. According to the Times of London, it could just be your genes.
In the past, poor spelling was attributed to all manner of things, from bad schooling to a lack of moral fibre. But science is offering a new explanation. A difficulty with spelling could be rooted in your genes and in the way that your brain is wired. These findings stem from research into the language disorder dyslexia, but they are proving important for the wider population. Biology, it seems, not only influences those with dyslexia but also people without the syndrome. If you are a bad speller you can blame your grey matter.
Simply deciphering the written word is the most complex task your brain will face says John Stein, Professor of Neuroscience at Oxford University Medical School, who notes that written language is a relatively recent invention. “It was invented only 5,000 years ago, notes Stein. “It is piggybacked on to our linguistic ability, which was invented 30,000-40,000 years ago. The consequence is that many people fail to read or spell.”
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