Reformers can't Dodge Race Issues.

All about the adults

The Huffington Post’s, Richard Whitmire wrote an article about race affecting the attitude of change in schools. The article talks about former Washington DC Public School Chancellor, Michelle Rhee and her bold reforms. While she was in office, she closed down schools and fired numerous teachers and principals. The problem Rhee did not count on, was that in a mainly black community, firing black people and calling them incompetent will not go over well. The problem was linked back to Mayor Marion Berry when he created jobs for black people merely as a way to balance racism of the past. Many of his appointees and their created jobs were costing tax payers millions. In addition, the people placed in those positions were unable to perform. When Rhee came into office and tried to fire these people she was told, “Here at DCPS, we don't fire people for incompetence…(w)e send them to the schools."

From an outside perspective, Rhee was attempting to fix an issue caused by a politician who was only trying to secure himself votes. Sounds logical and efficient right? Wrong. The problem with this and other issues plaguing schools is this issue is all about the adults and not about the children. Instead of looking at positive changes being made and demonstrable improvements being shown, the adults cry racism for the firing of incompetent black teachers and principals. This is where racism gets turned on its head and makes waves in the wrong direction. Legitimately calling a person or organization out for racism should be reserved for positive social change. An incompetent employee, who happens to be a minority should not automatically use their race as justification for keeping a job they do not deserve.

Michelle Rhee made radical changes and her work had positive empirical and statistical results, yet the race issue was the deciding factor to accuse her of foul play. The whole time I was reading this article I had to ask, “what about the kids?” This is another example of adults putting themselves before children and education. Michelle Rhee may not have all the answers; however, it is not hard to see that she was trying to put the children’s needs ahead of the adults. Instead of looking at what she was trying to do for a failed education system, she was attacked as a racist for depriving black people of politically appointed jobs they did not deserve. In order for us as American to ignite true reforms in education, parents, teachers, and politicians need to put the kids first.

Low Income School Initiative

Fighting Income Inequality in Schools

Authors Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane, wrote an article for the The Atlantic about fighting against income inequality in public schools. The article mainly addresses the solutions they present in their new book, Restoring Opportunity. The book presents three initiatives that will help with education changes designed to combat deficiencies in low income schools.

Duncan and Murnane say that one of the problems with public schools, and the ideas to fix them, is that they rely on “silver bullets” to solve the problem. The authors believe throwing money at a school or creating charter schools does not address the problem. They believe that consistency and quality are the only way to prepare low income kids to obtain new technological jobs.

Duncan and Murname have proposed three ideas to help put quality and consistency into practice. First, they believe, that not only are Pre-K programs are essential; they need to be staffed with trained teachers following the same curriculum. Second, elementary and middle schools should have a system that has teachers working as one group, all responsible for literacy, not just English teachers. Third, large failing high schools need to be replaced by smaller focused schools with teacher and student support.

Every one of their ideas has been put into practice on a small scale in New York since 2001. The result has been a marked improvement on graduation and SAT scores. The article offers more information on how the initiatives work, however, no information on how they are implemented. I am assuming that in order to get more information they want people to buy their book. What I like about this article, is that if offers solutions and does not just point out the problems. The article does offer a quick explanation of how each program works, but there is not enough information to offer valid praise or criticism of their initiates. I think it could be interesting reading, especially after discussing Jonathan Kozal.

"We" not "Me"

Moral choice

            Arthur H. Camins, director of Innovation in Engineering and Science Education, ask if new school reforms have negative moral and ethical consequences? Camins focuses on the dilemma of self-interest driven reforms and how they affect society as a whole. Camins explores, in his article, at what point should we make decisions based purely on how it affects the individual, and to what cost on the community?

Camins focuses on collective bargaining, charter schools and performance based teacher salary. His main argument is that current reform in these areas has promoted a “me” instead of “we” attitude. The individual teacher or parent has to make a decision that benefits themselves with no regard for others. For example, a charter school, on the surface, gives a parent the option of giving their child a better education by removing them from a failing school. Camins sees this as a way of merely, “permeated popular thinking, promoting false hopes, while maintaining the very privileges its supporters disingenuously or illogically claim to mediate.” Essentially it is masking inequity by creating the illusion that the poor are offered the same choices as the rich. The fact is the rich have the mobility of choice that the poor do not. A rich person can opt to move into the best neighborhood and choose to send their children to private schools. These individual choices, do not, however, negatively impact the other rich people around them. Conversely, moving poor children out of failing schools only further decimates the school, adversely affecting the neighborhood and neighbors, who may not have the same mobility and choice.

Camins point about morality in school choice is not necessarily something commonly associated with reform. I think his perspective would be a positive addition to restructuring school reform policies. In fact, Camins goes on to offer solutions to getting "me" back to "we." He suggest changing school funding from property tax to capital gains and corporate tax. This forces those who benefit from an educated work force contribute to the development of that workforce. He also suggest changes in mobility (school districting), mixed housing incentives for integration, and collective teaching which will encourage students helping students. Camins focuses on and address these with the community at the front of the argument.

Camins bring his argument back to morality as a whole. He reinforces moral and ethical choice by reminding his reader of the effects of civil rights in the US from the 1930’s to the 1970’s. The main theme of this historical reference is “we” and not “me.” Social changes helped the community not necessarily just the individual. With this in mind, Camins ask us to consider the good of the whole when really considering the consequences of government reforms in education. He asks us to stop, “de-moralizing and start re-moralizing education policy,” so that we invest back into the “we.” Camins final plea asks us, “if not now, when.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/26/education-reform-and-the-corrosion-of-community-responsibility/