Tag Archives: education reform

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What War On Teachers?

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Now, we believe that the majority of teachers in America know our system must be reformed, to put students first so that
America can compete, that teachers don’t teach to become rich or famous.  They teach because they love children. – Chris Christie

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie stated his belief in the good-will of teachers on August 28 at the Republican National Convention. It’s not a hard stand to take. According to the latest Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll, Americans almost universally support teachers. About three fourths of Americans say they have confidence in K-12 teachers. Compare this with the way Americans would grade schools and the difference is striking – over three fourths say they would give the US public education system a C or lower. Governor Christie, then, is by no means stretching himself when he supports teachers. Most people hold teachers fondly. Most of us had a couple dozen of them before we graduated high school, and we associate the majority of them with helping us navigate our formative years.

It’s confusing, then, when leading critics against the education reform movement, like Diane Ravitch, say there is a “war on teachers.”

What war on teachers?

I have never met a person who universally hates teachers. In fact, basically everyone I know in education, education reform, and education policy absolutely adores teachers.

But Diane Ravitch is not alone in the war on teachers claim. Teacher unions claim it, too.

On Tuesday night, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers Union, tweeted about Gov. Christie’s remarks.

The remarks Weingarten probably takes issue with are these:

They believe the educational savages will only put themselves ahead of children, that self- interest will always trump common sense, they believe in pitting unions against teachers, educators against parents, lobbyists against children. They believe in teachers’ unions. We believe in teachers. – Gov. Christie

But this is not an attack on teacher’s’ unions. It’s an attack on Democrats (which, quite frankly, is to be expected at the Republican National Convention). This is a sentiment with which unions should agree. Unions should not be set up to perpetuate themselves but to support teachers.

This, then, is where the divide begins.

For the teachers’ union, the interest of the union is the interest of teachers is the interest of children. The problem with this line of thinking, of course, is that these three interests are not the same. They are definitely related and often overlap, but they are not the same. Critics of ed reform, however, believe that they are the same. One need look no further than Diane Ravitch’s interview with Randi Kaye on CNN.

In the interview, Kaye asks Ravitch about merit pay. Ravitch answers matter-of-factly that “teachers don’t want merit pay.” Kaye challenges this idea by showing Ravitch a comment from an inner-city teacher that says merit pay is not a war on teachers.

Ravitch, of course, is making the mistake I outlined above. The interest of the union is not necessarily in the interest of every teacher. That’s not how unions work. Most everyone who supports merit pay supports it precisely because it is a way to reward the teachers they hold most dear. No one supports merit pay in a sinister attempt to divide teachers. There is no war on teachers.

It’s important to note that there are thinly veiled attempts at union busting that are lauded as ed reform. Ohio faced this issue with SB5 a year ago. The bill would have outlawed collective bargaining. This bill did not have children at interest. It had the state’s budget at interest.

With all of that being said, it’s surprising to see Weingarten express distaste for Gov. Christie. Just a couple of weeks ago, Gov. Christie signed a law into effect that makes it harder for teachers in New Jersey to gain tenure. Teachers’ unions helped shape the law, and it was met with bipartisan support. This is the kind of compromise we should be working for.

But we can’t hope to promote this type of compromise when we are demonizing sides. Saying there is a “war on teachers” implies that the supporters of teacher tenure laws are enemies of teachers. This is damaging rhetoric. If teachers’ unions feel like they aren’t being respected, they should speak up and say so, but they also need to respect that the ed reform movement loves students and loves teachers.

War metaphors, in general, are lazy. So let’s try a little harder.

 

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Asking Better Questions Can Lead to Better Conversations

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What kinds of questions are education reformers asking?

Part of my job as a Students for Education Reform chapter leader is to ask questions. I am constantly thinking about how to best invite people into the education reform conversation. The questions we ask have a huge impact on the answers we get.

I’ve recently been mildly obsessed with a website called Quora. I joined a couple weeks ago and have quickly added it to the list of websites I check daily. Quora was founded by Adam D’Angelo, a former engineer at Facebook. Quora allows its users to ask any question and then answer other users’ questions. The website protects against spam and the idiocy of sites like Yahoo! Answers in two ways. First, each user must have an account with a real name, typically tied to a social networking site. Second, Quora has created a currency. It costs “credits” to ask questions.

People ask questions on a variety of topics. And there are probably tens of thousands of questions already on the site.

I bring all this up because Quora is a great model for how we might begin asking the types of questions that will lead to real solutions in education reform.

The Education topic on Quora is one of the most thought-provoking on the site. Questions consider everything from curriculum to college loans to different learning styles. But there are two specific questions that stick out.

The first is this question: How can we solve the problems with public education in America? This is a great question and has generated 17 responses to date.

It’s follow-up question is interesting, though: What are some of the biggest problems with public education in America?

To this question there have been 31 responses, including one from Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of DC public schools and founder and current CEO of Students First.

 

This answer is obviously overly simplistic, but it illuminates two major points. One, there is inequality in the education system in terms of class. And two, there is inequality in the education in terms of availability and stake-holding. If there were a diplomat’s child in every single school, you better believe that every single school would be great.

While I love this answer, I think that we should be critical of it. First, I think it’s telling that the “what’s wrong” question came after the “how can we fix it” question. Sometimes we ask the “how can we fix it” question, realize that not everyone knows what we should be fixing, and then have to ask the “what’s wrong” question. Sometimes, this is beneficial, but we need to stop taking these steps backward. What’s wrong with education? It’s not equal. Not everyone gets the same education in this country. That’s the issue.

The “what’s wrong” questions encourage buzz words. They encourage these overly simplistic answers. If we start asking the “how can we fix it” questions, we can support, fund, and develop the solutions.

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Why I SFER

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Recently, there has been a lot of alarm about an organization I am a part of – Students for Education Reform. I think this alarm mostly started with this post by a really smart girl from Rutgers named Stephanie Rivera. Diane Ravitch, a prominent player in the education reform conversation, then got hold of  Rivera’s post, and applauded her and took a stance against SFER. And next thing I knew, my Twitter feed was blowing up. I have been thinking about this the past week or so, and I think it would be helpful to explain why I, a student, started a chapter of Students for Education Reform at Ohio University. This is going to be a long post so I thank you in advance for your patience.

My name is Spencer Smith. And I SFER because I think that every child deserves a great education right now.

I went to school K-12 in Springboro, OH. Springboro is the ninth richest school district in Ohio. Our graduation rate is over 97%. Of those 97%, most go on to college. I tell you this knowing full well that if critics want to throw the privileged spear at me, they can do it now. But better I come out and say it then someone think they are digging up the information. 

I didn’t get into my top choice universities. I landed at a great honors program at the very public Ohio University. OU is routinely ranked as the number one party school in America. When I would tell my high school friends where I was going, they would wrinkle their noses. But really, OU is a relatively good school. It holds its own against the much bigger Ohio State University and the slightly more prestigious (maybe) Miami University. The middle fifty percent of admitted freshman are a good bunch. They are good students. Not great students. But good students. Probably B students, most of them. Additionally, because of its location in Appalachia and its middle-of-the-line tuition, it’s home to many first generation college students.

For my first two years at Ohio University, I didn’t think much about education. I had made it to college. I figured that everyone who wanted to be at college was there. It was a done deal for me. I grew a beard, and started thinking about things like racism, sexism, and heteronormativity the way only a white straight dude from the ‘burbs can – theoretically. Then, at the end of my sophomore year, Teach for America invited me to be part of a series of leadership seminars. I heard about the achievement gap for the first time. My world was rocked. There were places where only 8% of students graduated from college? This was huge news for a kid coming from a place where it seemed like 80% of students were going to graduate from college. (This is probably an exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like).

I stayed in contact with Teach for America. I participated in a summer book club. One night, I was on a call discussing Mike Johnston‘s In The Deep Heart’s Core. Mike Johnston was on the call and he offhandedly mentioned Students for Education Reform. I sent an e-mail to Alexis Morin that night. Because she was listed as a co-founder on the website, I didn’t expect to hear back from her. But I heard back almost immediately. That summer I learned a lot about the organization. I learned how it started in a dorm room with e-mail blasts between the early members. I learned how it was infectious. And certainly, Alexis’s and Catharine Bellinger‘s enthusiasm and optimism is infectious. They come from a tradition of thought that says when you believe something, you do something. You don’t sit on the sidelines. You get up and say something. I wanted to do something, too.

So I did. And for the past year I’ve been the Chapter Leader at Ohio University. In that year, my knowledge of the education crisis in this country has grown more nuanced. I used to think that there was someone to blame for the whole thing. And that wasn’t anything SFER taught me. That was just me being a dumb college student. Thanks to SFER and other opportunities, I had the chance to study ed policy more in depth. Through Chapter Leader training and the weekly discussion series our chapter held on campus, I was able to approach issues from multiple angles. A lot of the members of our chapter are future teachers. (I’m a future teacher, too!) We aren’t calling for the abolition of teacher unions or the privatization of education. What we are calling for is conversation. We want to put everything on the table. We want options.

Because of SFER, I have done and seen things that I would have otherwise never done or seen. I organized a school visit to KIPP Journey in Columbus. I learned that whether or not you agree with charter schools, there are kids who are benefiting from them. And those kids can articulate that. They know that they are going to college. And they know that precisely because of the school they are going to. I was so impressed that I interned with them for a while.

SFER hosted a national summit for all the chapter leaders. By the time the summit rolled around, there were almost 100 chapters. I was struck by our diversity. Sure, I was a dude from the ‘burbs. And sure, there were Ivy League schools represented. But there were also chapter leaders who were mini-miracle stories. They had beat the odds in low-performing school districts, made it to college, and were now working to make sure that more students had that same opportunity.

Additionally, because of the SFER national summit, I learned about the Breakthrough Collaborative. I applied to Breakthrough, got accepted, and spent my summer teaching ninth grade English. I learned that 30 high school and college students can alleviate summer drain for over 100 middle schoolers.

Because of SFER, I believe that education reform is not just a conservative thing, a liberal thing, a union thing, a student thing, a teacher thing, a parent thing. Education reform is all of those things. We aren’t going to get anywhere by eliminating each other from the conversation. Maybe you don’t agree with SFER or Teach for America or Democrats for Education Reform. That’s fine. You don’t have to. But don’t be against them. Be against the achievement gap. Be against the failing education system. I promise you we can work together.