The Biblioracle: To fix failing schools, ask teachers
What we have done to public school teachers, particularly those working in urban environments, is a tragedy.
Most everyone would agree with the importance and admiration of teachers and yet for more than 30 years, we have been steadily degrading the profession. We have asked them to do the impossible — to overcome the multi-generational effects of poverty — and then blamed them when they couldn't work a miracle. Top-down, high-stakes-testing-based school reform is a proven disaster.
It isn't right, and as Dale Russakoff documents in "The Prize," her recently published examination of the disastrous attempts at reform in Newark, the primary beneficiaries have been politicians who get to make splashy announcements (before moving on to other things), and the educational consultants and testing companies who get to pocket the lion's share of any new money.
I don't even want to think about Chicago. You read the papers. You see the news. Ask yourself what the generations of reform that demand that teachers work miracles while tying their hands with standardization and lack of resources have gotten us.
Most of the voices in the education reform debate are journalists like Russakoff or Paul Tough ("How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character") or administrators, such as former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. These high-profile people get attention and dominate the conversation.
The voices we are missing, the voices I believe we need to hear, are teachers. I'd be surprised if many of you have heard of these books. They are put out by small publishers, or are even self-published, but they are the voices of experience and wisdom, and if you care about schools and teachers, next time you're tempted to pick up that book on what's wrong with schools by the very important person who gets to talk to Terry Gross on "Fresh Air," try one of these instead:
The Educator and the Oligarch: A Teacher Challenges the Gates Foundation by Anthony Cody
While billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates is undeniably well-meaning, there is no greater distorting and destructive force in education. Cody, a longtime teacher in the Oakland school system, exposes the "non-profit" industry that has made significant use of Gates Foundation money in pushing high-stakes, standardized-test-based reform. Gates is at the root of our federal policy on education. Cody shows why business success doesn't translate into universal wisdom.
This Is Not a Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education by Jose Vilson
Vilson is another inner-city teacher who has witnessed the damage that our obsession with standardized test results has wrought. He conveys the truth we already know, but seem to ignore, that teachers can only do so much to overcome the realities of poverty and inequality.
Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools? by Mercedes Schneider
Schneider is a teacher who turned herself into an investigative journalist dedicated to tracing the financial and organizational ties among corporate school reform advocatesThe Biblioracle: To fix failing schools, ask teachers - Chicago Tribune:
