CSET, English, Subtest IV

They say the third time is the charm, and I need big medicine to pass this examination. It seems to contain my deepest fears and resentments in the way I think English ought not to be taught: many technical and superficial details without much meaning or depth.

The breadth of these four mini-essays chokes my mind and pulverizes my spirit; I am bereft on the shores of some obscure analogy. Woe, is me!

Finding Positivity 

Facing my fears about English-as-discipline (versus what it primarily is, as a great mentor, Ted Snow, wistfully pointed out to me years ago: a language!) has been useful. At the very least I'm experiencing for myself the anguish that many students face: How do I continue to love literature, art, drama, the spoken word, and, yea, even technological marvels when I am asked to distill all of this greatness into a muddy canal or trickling stream? It seems to be a horror of sorts: to do the thing you love you must first murder it.

The language alive boiled down to bullet points and pragmatic tips for students. I'm no Shakespeare, but I think he too would be horrified. Dare I say that the Bard himself might never have been credentialed to teach English. And yet he is what is Taught!

Nevertheless 

The struggle of preparing has led me to reflect on my two previous failures and understand what is to be done tomorrow. It's a simple matter and for once the criticism of "You're over-thinking this" rings true (Q. Why don't we hear more talk of under-thinking? Isn't that a greater fault?). On my two previous attempts I took the prompts as springboards to wax eloquent about all things tangential. That was my fault.

This time I will stick close to the question and flesh it out thoroughly. No digressions, no chit-chat. Just the facts, ma'am. I possess the knowledge and the ability to demonstrate it. I need only the humility to do what is asked.

Movie as Metaphor...for What Ails Education?

The Pentagon Wars is clearly a "B" movie, 

and a nearly humorless comedy at that, but that does not prevent it from having some explanatory power.

The movie is allegedly based on the book by a retired Air Force Colonel who wrote what looks like a serious and detailed study of bureaucratic malfeasance in the Pentagon's procurement process (James Burton, The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard).

Stacked up against such notable classics as Catch-22 or Doctor Strangelove, it surely fails as a "military-lunacy-film," but it does score points in showing how idealists can get co-opted by the system or simply eliminated. The film does seem to leave open the possibility of a "third way" within the system in the character of one Colonel (later Brigadier General) Smith who feeds tidbits of truth to the press and Congress. Yet his timidity suggests this third way to be a compromise that one ought to not consider to remain morally coherent.

The Connection with Education...  

As he was near leaving office, President Eisenhower famously warned of the "military-industrial complex" which could lead to a consumeristic approach to the planning, production and acquisition of war materiel. The film demonstrates how some of the dynamics can work on a small scale. In this case, with the long drawn-out design and testing of what would (finally) become the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

The education establishment does not consist of generals, but principals, superintendents, professors at schools of education, textbook publishers, lobbyists and politicians. The latter are in abundance and, while they cannot rival the Pentagon's annual budget, education policy and practice far outstrips any cultural contribution the military makes.

And rather than inflated weapons systems that get pushed into the pipeline and have a way of being refined one way or another, the educational schemes that emerge from the "educational-bureaucratic complex" seem to have less "quality assurance" than say, the M16 (one of the best moments of the film is when "Colonel Burton" tells the tale of Vietnam veteran he met who used on the early M16s with the cheap ammo that cost hundreds of lives in the early days of its fielding). When soldiers die, people begin the notice. When educational schemes fail, does anyone notice?

"Diverting money from public schools"?

Diane Ravitch repeats the above mantra in the September/October 2011 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. Looking beyond the implied (and utterly false) doctrine that all of God's American children somehow belong to the public schools (a doctrine that was declared unconstitutional in the USSC's decision, Pierce et al. v. Society of Sisters in 1925: parents have the right to raise and educate their children in ways that they see fit and children are not "mere creatures of the State), it is evident that Professor Ravitch is a "glass half empty" kind of person.

One could view the departure of students from public schools as a good thing (in certain cases). We hear about school overcrowding -- what better way to decongest schools than to have some students go elsewhere? Yes, the public school loses some money, but it also has fewer students to teach.

Is Ms. Ravitch of the view that bigger is always better? Is the solution to education problems to maximize the number of students in a district or school in order to have large piles of cash or is the solution to be good stewards of the resources at hand?

The minute we begin looking at children as sources of revenue instead of as human beings, we know we've made a fundamental error.

McEducation

Having criticized Ms. Ravitch, I must here add a point of agreement: the dangers of privatizing education. There is something perhaps ominous about education corporations emerging (well, they already exist) who shoot for instant (albeit short-term) results and big profits at the expense of students and parents. I'm not one who has complete faith in the invisible hand of the free-market.

I taught for three years at a charter high school in the Denver metro area (The New America School, co-founded by the businessman/politician, Jared Polis) and that experience illustrated to me the short-sightedness of the franchise model in education. In particular, the focus on growth and student enrollment.

I recall attending a retreat in which the future of the school was being discussed. I mentioned that I thought the focus should be in establishing a sound pedagogy before pushing for more schools to open. I was in the minority on that one. A minority of one or two.

The corollary to growth is student enrollment (or "the numbers for October count"). This was a particularly shameful spectacle. Two examples:

1. Admitting the wrong kind of students. During my last year at the school we had a new principal who was literally obsessed with maximizing the number of students at the school. I can't recall even one student he advised to elsewhere. When a student comes to enroll with his probation officer, well, one would think one might hesitate about enrolling the student. No, no hesitation. Warm body = $. Violence, expulsion, sexual predator? No problem.

2. Gift cards. That same year the school was giving students $50 gift cards for students who referred friends to the school. They would get the card if the new student stayed through October count. Shameless.

Yes, the privateers can more easily succumb to the temptation to put dollars and cents ahead of pedagogical sense, but it is naive to think public schools are immune from the fixation on the bottom line.

The McNamara Effect

In his fascinating history of the United States Air Force, Walter Boyne discusses the priorities of Robert Strange McNamara that "created a climate of fear and [placed] a value on reporting rather than on doing."

Boyne continues:

Numbers -- whether it be of the bodies counted, sorties flown, bombs dropped, or Congressional delegation visits -- became the be-all and end-all of the military system McNamara shaped.

Report numbers were transformed from black dots on a page to truths that were quantified, defended, and extrapolated from.

Whole bureaucracies sprung up to create the numbers, challenge them, and mold them into new requirements for more numbers (Beyond the Wild Blue, 2nd ed., p. 160).

Any teachers out there who can relate to a climate of fear and an obsession with "measurable outcomes" and "growth"? I can sure relate to it. We know what the McNamara Effect was on that war in Indochina: hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead for no purpose.

What the end game is for public educators who embrace McNamara's approach is yet to be seen. I'm betting Ho Chi Minh wins.

How TFA is gutting public education

Some of the best teachers I've met came through the Teach for America pipeline. Young, zealous, and super-smart. Very decent folks.

So why the provocative title to this post?

Perhaps I should have said, "How TFA might gut public education." That may be more accurate. Karl Marx was famous for running all problems through an economic filter, and there may be something worthwhile in asking, "What's the cost/benefit of a TFA teacher versus other teachers?"

This might be too vague. Let's take it from another angle: in this time of scarcer resources, are administrators "better off" hiring inexperienced but enthusiastic teachers or "seasoned" (i.e., old) teachers with years of experience and advanced degrees?

In the current education climate, "better off" is often defined as appearing to always do more with less; maximizing resources, in other words. Since public education tends to mimic corporate structures, the goal is to have interchangeable teachers who can do whatever needs to be done. Since individuality is really a matter of indifference, then Cheapest is Best.

So, yes, administrative careerists will naturally use "raw material" that is cheap in order to keep within budget. That's to be expected.

Teach for America is having some unintended consequences. Ultimately bringing down wages and exchanging experience and competence for enthusiasm may be just two.

For the Sake of the Children

Hearing this phrase is also grounds for reaching for the proverbial Luger or perhaps a reason for paying close attention to what the speaker says next.

On talk radio and during an interview
A local radio station (KHOW) has a show called "Caplis and Silverman" co-hosted by Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman; they are a great pair - far more interesting than, say, Hannity and Colmes were. Last week they were discussing a sick out by Boulder Valley teachers. Caplis was suggesting that everyone should agree to do "what is best for the children." Hmm, sounds good. But so does "pro-choice" unless you think deeply about what is being chosen. Yet unlike the "pro-choice" mantra, "for the children" is far more ambiguous.

Short term or long term?
In my experience, "what is good for the children" is sometimes proposed without reference to what is good for teachers. I've heard administrators say such things as "this isn't about teacher comfort, but what's good for the students" in reference to an inane and insane requirement that teachers call each student's home at least once per week. This was at a charter school where the parents were predominately Spanish-speakers. Call 120 homes in a language I don't speak; this benefits whom, how exactly?

On the "Caplis and Silverman Show," Dan Caplis was suggesting that teachers should always do what is best for the students, not themselves. (Not to get Kantian here, but does Mr. Caplis in his law practice do what is best for his clients without reference to himself - does he routinely foreswear compensation?) Implicit in this naive remark are at least two facts:

1. What is "best" for the children is rarely univocal.
Is it always best that teachers stay on the job and never strike? Well, that would depend on the rationale for the strike. Teachers might be striking because of bad adminstrative policies that "dumb down" the curriculum or teachers might be asking for an unreasonable pay raise; in the former case one would say, "strike," in the latter, don't.
Is a longer school day always best for the children? It depends on how the time is spent and what provision is made for teachers having adequate leisure [I find it interesting that the only people I hear say how "easy" teaching is, are either (a) incompetent teachers or (b) more likely, those who don't teach]. I met a guy recently who was fired from a charter school chain because he suggested that teachers have more time to meet together and fewer contact hours with students. In other words, because he was concerned about an "assembly line" approach to teaching, he was deemed to not be a "team player" (even as he was asking for more time for "the team" to coordinate their activities!)

2. What is bad for teachers is also bad for students.
Suppose you have a cadre of teachers that always believes a principal when he says, "This is good for the kids, so we're going to do it," and these teachers nod their heads in assent. If the administrator is wise, benevloent and saintly, then, well, perhaps all of these good things shower upon teachers and students alike. If however one lives on this planet, we would soon find out that "what is good for the children" (for now we'll assume that these are actually good things) -- things such as longer school days, more instructional time, and more lively instruction -- these things have a price that teachers must pay. Let's take them in order with the assumption that there are no changes in staffing:

A. A longer school day. This means that either teachers make their families and friends suffer by cloistering themselves away and continuing to grade papers long into the night and skip time with the family or these teachers, say, "Screw it, I used to ask for essays, but now I don't have time to grade them, so I'll start handing out multiple choice quizzes" or some other time saving measure. In the long term, students pay the price.

B. More instructional time or "contact hours."
Teachers teach more but they might also communicate less. A great booklet I recently read was Julian Carron's "Educating: That is, a Communication of Yourself." Carron makes it very clear that the most important thing a teacher communicates is not content per se, but how the teacher views all of reality. This is not pie-in-the-sky, but quite concrete. More contact hours may translate into uninspired teacher, which helps no one.

C. More interesting or lively instruction.
This one kills me: the vision of the teacher as entertainer and the assumption that students should be distracted into learning. In any event, where does the time for creativity come from? It has been taken away. If the teacher does make instruction more entertaining, it will in fact be less interesting; bells and whistles will have replaced curiosity and wonder.

Abstractions are useless
What I love about teaching is that reality is unavoidable. My students challenge me to ask daily why I do what I do (and if, in fact, it is worth doing!); I cannot just fall back into some ideology to explain reality: they won't let me.

Those who use ideological phrases like "it's for the children" aren't working with the children (even if there is a classroom of kids in front of them); they are working with abstractions. In The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them, E.D. Hirsch has a great glossary of terms and he shows how eduspeak is a dodge from thought. Let's add "for the children" to the list.