Public Schools—the Mortar that Holds the Community Together (Garrison Keillor)
Jeff Bryant, who writes a weekly column for the Educational Opportunity Network, recently discussed the difference between conceptualizing education reform around inputs and outcomes. Today our federal testing law, No Child Left Behind, and all the federal competitive grant programs like Race to the Top that prescribe punitive turnarounds for schools that can’t produce high test scores are designed to measure outcomes. The very concept of achievement gaps is defined by test scores—outcomes.
Outcomes are important surely. As parents we hope for successful outcomes for our children: a high school diploma—college graduation—a job. Then there are the intangible outcomes we seek for our children: mental health, contentment, ethical character, the capacity to stick with whatever one undertakes. Parents quickly realize there are too many variables; their children are human and invariably complex. We do the best we can, but we cannot guarantee outcomes.
Neither can the community guarantee positive outcomes for all of its children, though in 1889, John Dewey, our premier education philosopher challenged us to do our best: “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children…. Only by being true to the full growth of all the individuals who make it up, can society by any chance be true to itself.” Dewey’s idea is about inputs, however. He challenges us to hold ourselves personally responsible for educating all children. Today there is ample evidence that we are not even coming close to providing adequate educational inputs for our society’s poorest children.
Brand new census data demonstrate that, “Public elementary and secondary education revenue fell in fiscal year 2012 for the first time since 1977, when the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting public education finance data annually. Public elementary and secondary Public Schools—the Mortar that Holds the Community Together (Garrison Keillor) | janresseger:
I regularly follow Michigan’s Eclectablog, because it is a place to learn about the very difficult and complex issues around Michigan’s public schools, now in many cases privatized. This morning Electablog referred me to a video clip from Rachel Maddow on MSNBC covering the story of the closing of a school she has been tracking for several years, Catherine Ferguson Academy, a school that will clos