Focus talk given on 6th October 2016
—Jan Rosenberg
My
journey as a teacher began in 1978, when I was a reading tutor in a
public school in Hartford, Ct. All of my students came from one of
the poorest housing projects in an economically challenged city. Two
years later I moved to Maynard MA. From then until my retirement in
2009, I worked in the field of special education within public middle
and high schools in high socio-economic status communities. Since
retirement I have been a long-term substitute teacher, and an ESL
tutor in Lowell. I also taught two summer sessions of the reading
program at the Boston Arts Academy, remediating reading skills with
rising tenth and eleventh graders.
At
the outset I would like to state my core beliefs. First, robust
public education, while a challenging project, is essential to
democracy. Strong teachers’ unions support, rather than harm,
quality education. Teaching again has to be made viable as a
profession and as an entrée into the middle class. Finally, I
believe that the underlying inequities of our society have to be
addressed. Generally speaking, poor students have less opportunity
for a high quality education that those living in high SES
communities. It has been over fifty years since the War on Poverty
and Civil Rights Movement, and yet, according to a recent article in
the Christian Science Monitor, “school segregation has become even
worse in recent decades. A report by the US Government
Accountability Office earlier this year found that the percentage of
public schools with high concentrations of poor and black and
Hispanic students has nearly doubled since 2000.”
In
my view the two most significant and large-scale drivers of change in
education over the last two decades have been the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2001, and the voucher/charter school/corporate reform
movements. NCLB demanded greater accountability via yearly tests of
student achievement in the areas of reading and math as determined by
each state. If the required improvements were not made each year,
schools, were punished with decreased funding, and ultimately, by
state takeover. Because absolute, not relative improvement was
sought, schools were labeled as failing even if improvements in
performance had been made. Having had students enter high school
with minimal reading, writing, or math skills, I can say that I
strongly believe in accountability around student learning. However,
as a full participant during those years, my observation was that
the testing regime contributed to increased anxiety for both teachers
and students, impacted negatively the amount of time devoted to
learning, and increased “teaching to the test”. On the other
hand, I observed a principal-led initiative around writing responses
to open-ended questions that was easily actionable, and which made a
significant difference both in school culture and in the student
performance of that school on the NAEP (National Assessment of
Educational Progress), which is a yearly assessment given to a random
group of students that predated NCLB. By 2015 so much criticism of
No Child Left Behind had accumulated from across the political
spectrum, that Congress took away the national features and replaced
it with the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed in December 2015.
ESSA limits the role of the federal government, but continues to
require annual testing between third and eighth grades.
The
second driver of change has been the voucher/charter school/corporate
reform movement. While its history is very long and complex, it has
roots both as a parent-led movement to increase options and
successful educational experiences for their children, and as a
libertarian free-market economy belief in a profit-based education
system in which resources are controlled by private entities rather
than locally-based and publicly elected school boards. Therein lies
the problem! This cause has been taken up by the Koch Brothers and
their related network as well as other billionaires, like the Walton
family. Public schools and teachers are to them, examples of how
regulation does not work. While we have many excellent charter
schools in Massachusetts, we also have Question #2 on our November
ballots. If approved, this would lift the cap on charter schools,
and divert, over time, greater amounts of money from the public
schools, as well as removing local decision- making from the school
districts with regard to any new charters. So, what else is wrong with
this picture? More charters essentially leave the problem of
inequity in access to quality education untouched. Charter schools
can choose their students in a way that leaves out the neediest. In
addition, national experience with charter schools indicate that
without greater oversight and transparency, charters are vulnerable
to corruption and fraud. Finally, the effectiveness of charters has
not been demonstrated in a consistent manner.
So
what has happened to educators as a result of these two large drivers
of change? Working conditions have deteriorated, and it has become
more difficult to not only recruit, but to hold on to excellent
teacher candidates who might have entered the field. Schools and
teachers have been told to do more with less AND score higher on
tests. Teachers have been demonized; there has been a very active
campaign to eliminate tenure and procedural safeguards for teachers
in conflict with their administrators. In fact, there has been an
active campaign to deprofessionalize teaching, placing inadequately
trained people into classrooms. Emphasis has shifted from qualitative
to quantitative evaluation systems, with punitive rather than
collaborative consequences, akin to the punitive responses to
insufficient growth on NCLB scores. Inadequate resources for the
support of students with learning needs and mental health issues
continue to be the norm rather than the exception. At the same time
teachers have been confronted by increasingly complex students with
learning needs, mental health issues, and language challenges in
their classrooms. Corporate reformers are also pushing online
monitoring of student performance and universal data collection, as
well as personalized teaching via digital device – another way to
eliminate teachers!
So
where’s the hope in education? I see hope in a number of corners.
As a special educator, I see hope in the growing research base on
addressing dyslexia, specifically when and how. There is no need, if
we choose to make resources available, for students to suffer through
k-12 without knowing how to read. Similarly, I see growing
improvements and sophistication in how to work with students on the
autism spectrum, including how to transition such students to the
worlds of work and higher education. I also see great hope in the
Massachusetts initiative to create trauma-sensitive schools, which
has the potential to impact a large number of students. Yet another
source of hope for education includes such programs as CARE for
teachers, or Cultivating Awareness and Resilience for Educators. It
is a unique program “designed to help teachers reduce stress and
enliven their teaching by promoting awareness, presence, compassion,
reflection, and inspiration- the inner resources they need to help
students flourish socially, emotionally, and academically”. Hope
also lies in the many teacher-led initiatives to improve the quality
of curriculum, pedagogy, and delivery of services, about which one
rarely hears.
Ultimately,
hope lies in an informed citizenry, committed teachers who are
respected and well-paid, and in the students themselves, who are very
much worth fighting for.
