Local Control of Schools

we just got over our day of elections here in the US. since i live in texas, we are currently innundated with Republican rhetoric and dogma. one issue that keeps popping up is that of "local control" of school systems, whereby each school system decides on its own methods of operation, etc, with no intervention on the part of Federal entities. am i the only one in the world who thinks this is a bad idea? i sure do feel like it. right now most folks in the US would agree on one thing: the educational system here is not working very well. the students we are turning out can't read, think, or do math. i think one of the problems we have is a total lack of standards for teachers and students across the US. my own work experience has been in large academic instituions, large US corporations, and the US military. in these places i have seen situations where there are many separated units all trying to do essentially the same thing or accomplish the same job, mission, etc. more often than not, one thing that helps to increase productivity and reduce costs within that organization is to give all of the disparate units a common set of standards, procedures, and processes with which to operate. in the US, there are no federal guidelines for basic qualifications for teachers, no standard curricula, no standards for the school environment itself, nothing. local districts can (and do) descend down to the level of the worst teacher, worst teaching materials, and worst students, simply because it is easier and cheaper to do this than it is to maintain a level of excellence. we have federal standards for work environments, hospitals, prisons, highways, and even very stringent ones for the care and use of lab animals. all except for our children, our most important natural resource. i would love to hear some thoughts and opinions on this issue.

A corporation and an agency can have systematic standards that are high quality, but they also have the human element that can manipulate those uniform criteria and methodologies. Apply it to education and the results may be impressive. Kids will be able to examine lots of different subjects and act skillfully to bring about improvements in science, technology, medicine, mathematics, logic, philosophy, the humanities, the arts, social policy, community development. The population will be better educated. But what is education? Surely it is something more than raising our intelligence and skill levels. I think it's important to question how we feel, to see whether we even do feel. Feeling, and becoming deeply aware of what and how we feel, can get submerged and smothered and lost in the competitive struggle to become proficient at physics or nursing or whatever vocation you or your parents and the school system prepares you for. We can be exposed to lots of knowledge and facts and things that are going on and that people are involved in. And is that really education? The whole of life is overlooked. Life is in the heart, and the heart is always relinquished in education. A great teacher who inspires students---that's not life. It's subordination to the direction of another. Which we gladly do. Why? Because it's so strange to be inspired. It's so delicious. And we prefer that to being bored out of our skulls. It's not life, though. Life has its own direction which can't be traced except by the heart and feeling that's unimposed on. It's beyond technique, methodology, standards, criteria. And it's beyond the current state of education, too.

excellent points, guys!

Too often state agencies exercise too much control over curriculum and texts, to the point where everything is so rigidly controlled that school can be taught by the janitor.

that, i believe , is a whole different issue. the fact that teachers have no control over how they teach (which is true, i think) is distinct from the issue of there being a lack of standards for education in this country. we can have standards for excellence and allow our teachers to teach under those standards without the ridiculous level of control we see nowadays.

It sounds like a nice idea, but, unless you are willing to settle for a core of necessary instruction, that the teacher can expand on at will, you will have dictation, not teaching.

that is exactly what i would like to see.

I would too. It would be nice to be able to get teachers teaching again, instead of reading someone elses material

That's what I love about Montessori, the teacher directing the students toward learning opportunities that they discover and interpret for themselves. And practically no dittoes.

My mother was impressed by montessori. unfortunately too late to affect me.

Ours here ends at 1st grade. I would love to see it expand thru elementary age. Are Waldorf schools popular there?

Never heard of them.

They're real popular in Austin. This was gleaned from http://www.io.com/~karisch/waldirad.html Austin Waldorf School 8702 South View Road Austin, Texas 78737 USA 512-288-5942 Affiliation with AWSNA: member Dated Founded: 1980 Grades Offered: K-9 The Austin Waldorf School offers a quality Waldorf education to approximately 260 students on its beautiful 11-acre campus in southwest Austin, Texas. For the school year 1997-98, the school will offer three kindergartens and grades 1 through 9 -- yes, the first high school class begins in Fall, 1997! For enrollment information, contact Carol Toole or Stacy Ehrlich at (512) 288-5942.

I miss teaching and learning in the classroom I don't miss the top-down lesson plan stuff (and pretty effectively avoided most of it) I don't miss the poor allocation of funds, the rating a teacher and students based on standardized (as if!) test scores in 'fundemental' subject areas. My kids could take it or leave it as far as math and science were concerned. I read to them all the time, we conceptualized math concepts, we experimented with science... they loved reading. ALL of them. They could sit quietly for hours being read to or paging through a book. Now the fundementals of teaching reading, the struggle to keep and hold attention of a child who felt incapable of learning in such a capacity... that was a challenge. We learned how to get along with each other. How to redirect (not stymie) our anger and frustration. How to express fear and sadness and joy and excitement 'constructively' (for lack of a better word). We would chalk up the days lesson for a better one as the need arose to discuss anger or death or drugs or anything (and it often did). I love all of those kids for a variety of different reasons... their willingness to give, their strength, their weakness, their desire to be loved, their smiles, their sense of humors, their tears, their compassion, their ability to teach me, their ability to make me feel needed, their ability to make me feel completely useless, their mischeviousness, their creativity, their desperate desire to fit in... And just in the last couple of weeks have I been able to shake off the better part of the guilt I felt in leaving them and realize that my health and my happiness and my need to grow in a different direction doesn't speak negatively of me or any of them. I'm terribly concerned with the 'state of education' here. Just two weeks ago the front page article of the newpaper was about the lack of teachers in the state and how the CDE is contemplating lowering teaching certification standards to attract more eligible teachers. Well here's some news for everyone... that will only make the situation worse. Good teachers dislike the mediocity in the schools already... they are going elsewhere. And the last thing I want is more teachers that are comfortable with the level of blech existing there already. As a country, we keep making teaching more 'plug and play' read off the lesson plan the same way and teach it to all the children the same way. Well children are all different (not telling you anything you don't know, just venting) and cookie cutter education doesn't make for cookie cutter children... it makes for a bunch of children that don't learn squat except maybe that they can't learn the way material is being presented. Blah, blah, blah, I suppose I could go on for days, just preaching to the choir (as it were) but I just get ruffled inside and then stew about it. Makes me not want to have kids. Unless of course Jim would volunteer to teach my kids at the park!

I agree with everything that you just said. My aunt teaches in a public school. She has found a way around the mediocrity. She teaches in the inner city. She believes that those kids need the education most of all. In the inner city, the administrators tend not to pay any attention to what is taught.

not to be argumentative but that philosophy is certainly detrimental as well. I think I get what you mean about your aunt finding "a way around the mediocrity" it has to happen in your own head, you circumvent it inyour brain and in your heart and you just do the best you can do with what you've got to work with. She is a stronger person that I if it doesn't eat at her everyday. (problem is, I'm just not so good at detachment)

Maybe she is stronger. I know for a fact that she has spent a long time dealing with the frustration of a system that thwarts her at every turn.

that's interesting. i think i saw some of that inner city perspective while working at the UT med school here in san antonio. i used to recruit high school volunteer students from the poorest inner city school in SA to work in my research lab. they were all chicano/a and about half of them came from single parent homes. the teachers and administrators were very flexible with me in terms of letting me keep the best and brightest for longer than i could, and allowing them to do more for their final projects. this was in contrast to the admin stuff i had to put up with while working with students from the health careers magnet high school. most of them were unable to see a project thru to its completion because of time contraints both in terms of the time i had them (one semester) and in terms of their daily schedules.

i am no good at detachment either, stacey. the new environment of teaching, where there is minimal contact between teachers and students, would not work for me.

oh, I had plenty of contact. remember all of my kids were 'diagnosed' as emotionally disturbed. Plenty of physical restraint was necessary (you know, knives and physical assaults student to student, self-mutilation...) so I reciprocated with hugs. Yep, it was frowned upon but how in the hell else are you supposed to help these kids understand what appropriate physical contact is and that all contact doesn't have to hurt?

Stacey, I hope that you haven't given up teaching. Teachers like you are sorely needed.

I have. Just a month ago (November 11th being the day I broke my contract)

I hope, then, that one day you will go back to it.

that's what she's got us for... captive little learners with no hierarchical rules and regs... so, whatcha gonna teach us, Stace?

*laugh* looks like you already know all the facts!

if only...

I don't think that it is possible to know all the facts, about anything.

I am a politically incorrect teacher. I teach English during the week at a local high school. In Hawaii, English is a second language and should be taught as such (those in charge will not take that approach or allow teachers to do it except on a case-by-case basis). Except where funds are available for G/T (gifted and talented) education, ability grouping has been replaced by heterogeneous classrooms with geniuses, dolts, and everyone in between in the same classes--the highly motivated become listles and the unmotivated become behavior problems. When politicians and psychologists got personally involved in the everyday aspects of education, public schools went to hell in a handbasket (sorry for the cliche). It is more important for me to feed a child's self-esteem than it is to nurture intellectual curiosity. I believe that self-esteem is something you earn, not something you learn. Although I believe in inquiry and Socratic questioning, I think a certain amount of what one referred to as "dittoe ," and which I take it to mean drill and regurgitation of info, is necessary, no matter how unglamorous or boring. Especially in math, science, and history, where are certain amount of "facts" and "procedures" are necessary to have at hand in the brain. Afraid I'm old school about that. I'm a bigger dinosaur than Barney!

So I'm not misunderstood about self-esteem and intellectual curiosity, the statement I made is the current paradigm of education, what the politicians and psychologists think it's important for me to do. I believe the opposite. I believe if the kids need their egos fed, they should go to Mama. She will always love them, even if they become Uzi-wielding mass murderers. It's my mission to teach them, not to love them. I'm not unsympathetic, but if I have to choose between self-esteem and knowledge, it' damn hard to get by in the world on self-esteem alone.

John, thanks for bringing an important subject back to On Topic discussion.

depending on the age of the children you're working with... sometimes you have to feed them some self-esteem so they even think they're worthy of knowledge...

About 15 years ago, one of the 9-yr olds I worked with referred to adults as "dolts." I understood her sentiments completely. I don't blame kids for not wanting to learn anything from adults. We are terrible role models, and we engage in atrocious and idiotic practices, not the least of which is routinely damaging children who disobey authority. I can't imagine wanting to learn anything from anyone who believes it is appropriate to damage children.

gosh... and we have parents like that...

Yup, we sure do.

House approves education bill For first time, federal aid would be tied to test scores; vouchers omitted May 24 2001 Go to http://detnews.com/2001/schools/0105/24/a03-227959.htm for full article Bill highlights * Requires annual state tests in reading and math for every child in grades three through eight. Schools unable to improve test scores enough after one year would qualify for extra federal aid, but could be required to replace some staff members. Low-income students could transfer to another public school. * If a school's test scores do not show enough progress after three consecutive years, low-income students could use their portion of Title I money for tutoring, summer school or transportation to another public school. Tutoring services could be provided by parochial schools. * Authorizes $400 million to help states design their own standardized tests. * Authorizes $24 billion for elementary and secondary education, about $5.4 billion more than this year. * Requires schools to let students transfer to another public school if they are the victim of a violent crime at school. * Allows school districts to use up to half of their federal money without oversight from state or federal governments, although Title I money would still be to help poor children. As a pilot program, 100 school districts -- two per state -- could enter into an agreement by which schools would be freed from virtually all restrictions on federal money. * Provides nearly $1 billion per year for the next five years to improve reading, with a goal of making sure every youngster can read by third grade. * Provides more money for charter schools. * Requires schools to develop report cards that show a student's academic progress compared to other students locally and statewide. * Requires schools to ensure that students are proficient in English after three years of attending school in the United States; requires school districts to get parents' consent before placing a child in a program that is not primarily taught in English. By Greg Toppo / Associated Press