Why Don't Schools Teach Children Morality and Empathy? - The Atlantic

Why Don't Schools Teach Children Morality and Empathy? - The Atlantic:

Why Don't Schools Teach Children Morality and Empathy?

A few months ago, I presented the following scenario to my junior English students: Your boyfriend or girlfriend has committed a felony, during which other people were badly harmed. Should you or should you not turn him or her into the police?

The class immediately erupted with commentary. It was obvious, they said, that loyalty was paramount—not a single student said they’d “snitch.” They were unequivocally unconcerned about who was harmed in this hypothetical scenario. This troubled me.   

This discussion was part of an introduction to an essay assignment about whether Americans should pay more for ethically produced food. We continued discussing other dilemmas, and the kids were more engaged that they’d been in weeks, grappling with big questions about values, character, and right versus wrong as I attempted to expand their thinking about who and what is affected—and why it matters—by their caloric choices.

I was satisfied that students were clearly thinking about tough issues, but unsettled by their lack of experience considering their own values. “Do you think you should discuss morality and ethics more often in school?” I asked the class. The vast majority of heads nodded in agreement. Engaging in this type of discourse, it seemed, was a mostly foreign concept for the kids.

Widespread adoption of the Common Core standards—despite resistance by some states—arguably continues the legacy of the No Child Left Behind Act. The 2002 law charged all public schools to achieve 100 percent proficiency in reading and math by 2014, meaning that all students were expected to be on grade level. This unrealistic target forced schools to track and measure the academic achievement of all students, a goal lauded by most, but one that ultimately elevated standardized testing and severely narrowed curricula. Quantifying academic gains remains at the forefront of school-improvement efforts to the detriment of other worthwhile purposes of schooling.

As my students seemed to crave more meaningful discussions and instruction relating to character, morality, and ethics, it struck me how invisible these issues have become in many schools. By omission, are U.S. schools teaching their Why Don't Schools Teach Children Morality and Empathy? - The Atlantic:

Ch*ckenshit Education | The Merrow Report

Ch*ckenshit Education | The Merrow Report:

Ch*ckenshit Education

When I was 8 years old, my morning chores including collecting the eggs of the 30-40 chickens on our farm. I’d bring them to the kitchen, wash my hands, and walk to school with my older sister.   It was a simple 4-step process: collect the eggs, deliver them to the kitchen, wash up, and head off to school.

Unfortunately, I sometimes forgot Step 3, washing my hands, meaning that I might have had some ch*ckenshit in my fingernails when I entered my 3rd grade classroom. Unfortunately for me, my 3rd grade teacher was a hygiene fanatic who required each of us line up and approach her desk, breathe into her face (had we brushed?) and show her our hands (had we washed?).  I always brushed my teeth after breakfast, so I never failed the halitosis test, but she got me on the “clean hands” exam quite a few times.

Each time the punishment was a BLACK STAR next to my name on the wall chart that was prominently displayed near the classroom door.  She started the chart on Day One, and I got quite a few of those unforgettable BLACK STARS during the year. It was humiliating, but I still made the mistake of not washing up quite a few times.  I was only 8, or we were running late, or whatever….

What brings this to mind is the practice in some benighted school systems of posting students’ scores on state exams on a so-called “data wall” in each classroom, so that every kid can see how he or she did…and how everyone else did.  That’s supposed to make kids work harder….

Teacher Launa Hall has written a thoughtful essay about this trend, which I urge you to read.  She writes that she resisted the requirement at first but eventually gave in and created her own “data wall,” a decision she regretted as soon as she saw her students looking at the scores.

“My third-graders tumbled into the classroom, and one child I’d especially been watching for Ch*ckenshit Education | The Merrow Report:

Zero tolerance laws increase suspension rates for black students, research shows

Zero tolerance laws increase suspension rates for black students, research shows:

Zero tolerance laws increase suspension rates for black students, research shows

The State Senate of Michigan is currently considering legislation that would scale back “zero tolerance” discipline policies in the state’s public schools.

Zero tolerance discipline laws require automatic and generally severe punishment for specified offenses that could range from possessing weapons to physical assault. They leave little leeway for consideration of the circumstances of the offense.

The bill, already approved by the State House, proposes to add provisions that would consider the contextual factors around an incident, such as the student’s disciplinary history, and would ask whether lesser forms of punishment would suffice.

In other words, suspension and expulsion would no longer be as “mandatory” and there would be a little more “tolerance” in these state discipline laws.

As a researcher of education policy and school discipline, I would highlight that these revisions, some of which have been passed in other states, represent a significant change of course for state school discipline law.

In fact, my recent work and that of others suggests that the shift away from zero tolerance approaches is for the better.

Why zero tolerance policies were introduced

Throughout the 1990s, the number of states with zero tolerance laws, those requiring suspension or expulsion for specified offenses, increased significantly.

The rapid adoption of such laws was spurred in part by the passage of the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act, federal legislation that required states to adopt mandatory expulsion laws for possessing a firearm in school.

These safety concerns were further heightened by the shooting that took place at Columbine High School, a public high school in Littleton, Colorado.

Following Columbine, by the early 2000s, nearly every state had a zero tolerance law in place. Many of these laws expanded beyond firearms to include other weapons, physical assaults and drug offenses.

Push back against zero tolerance

Clearly, such zero tolerance laws were meant to improve the safety and order of the school environment. However, in recent years, they have been seen as being overly prescriptive and as contributing to racial disparities in school discipline.

For instance, there are cases of students being suspended for accidentally bringing apocketknife to school. In one high-profile case, a student was suspended for chewing a pastry into the shape of a gun.

Additionally, federal data show that black students are suspended at rates two to three times higher than their white peers.

As a result, in 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Education issued a joint “Dear Colleague” letter directed to public school districts. The letter was a call for reductions in the use of suspensions and expulsions and, instead, for a focus on ensuring the fair use of school discipline for students of all backgrounds.

Here’s what new research shows

In a newly published study, I explored the implications of state zero tolerance laws – laws that require school districts to adopt zero tolerance policies.

In particular, I sought to find out if they contributed to increased use of suspensions and if they led to racial disparities. Given claims by proponents of such laws that they increase the safety and order of the school overall, I also wanted to see if these laws Zero tolerance laws increase suspension rates for black students, research shows:

A Study of Branding and Marketing in the New World of School Competition | Diane Ravitch's blog

A Study of Branding and Marketing in the New World of School Competition | Diane Ravitch's blog:

A Study of Branding and Marketing in the New World of School Competition

A few years ago, when I visited Michigan, I spoke with about 80 district superintendents. The most common complaint from them was the money they had to spend every year advertising themselves in a fierce competition with other districts. The money follows the child, so larger enrollments meant bigger budgets. Each district, they said, typically puts about $100,000 into campaign to poach students away from neighboring districts.

They thought this was a huge waste of resources, since they also had to hire people to design their marketing materials.

This study reviews the practices of branding and marketing schools in a competitive environment.

The charter chain that does it best is Success Academies, which targets its audience, sends out mailers, and blankets the neighborhood with notices to parents. Its goal is to have more applicants than places, so it can advertise that it has a long waiting list.

When Success Academy opened its first school in Harlem, it had a marketing budget of $325,000. The public school with which it competed had $500 to print flyers and brochures.A Study of Branding and Marketing in the New World of School Competition | Diane Ravitch's blog:

40 years after desegregation ruling, core problems remain

40 years after desegregation ruling, core problems remain:

40 years after desegregation ruling, core problems remain

A new student at Fourth Street School, 1542 N. 4th St., is directed to his teacher by Mary Krause, a paraprofessional aide, in 1976. Credit: Journal Sentinel files

Here's a milestone I don't expect anyone will celebrate. The start of the school year, just over a month from now, will mark the 40th anniversary of the launch of court-ordered school desegregation of Milwaukee Public Schools.
It's remarkable how some of the key elements of the plans implemented beginning then remain part of the Milwaukee school landscape now. To name three:
The racial integration plan that was implemented over several years was focused largely on trying to make a group of "magnet schools" attractive enough that both white and black children would enroll. Some schools that arose in that era, such as Rufus King High School and Golda Meir School, remain comparatively diverse and among the best in Milwaukee.
Busing is No. 2. Desegregation brought a large increase in the role of busing to move children to schools outside their own neighborhoods. To this day, busing remains a central part of the school landscape, long after desegregation itself pretty much faded out.
It's the third remnant that is most dispiriting: The problems desegregation aimed to solve have not, for the most part, gone away. In some ways, they are worse.
In 1976, the MPS student body was about two-thirds white. Within five years, the white percentage was under 50%. Last fall, according to MPS, it was 13%. Where did all those kids go? The suburbs is the main answer.
As for MPS schools, for a few years, there was a big push for diverse enrollments in many schools, including use of quotas by race in some. But even mandated integration faltered soon, largely because so many whites left the system.
Today, the large majority of schools in the city, including private schools and non-MPS charter schools, predominantly have one racial or ethnic identity, black, Hispanic or white. With a short list of praiseworthy exceptions, there is little in Milwaukee that qualifies to be called integration in education.
As for integration in the suburbs, quite a few schools that are closer to the city of Milwaukee have more diverse student rosters than they had a decade ago, not to mention four decades ago. That's due to a number of changes, including the demographic makeup of those suburbs, as well as the state's open enrollment law, which allows students from one school district to enroll in another district. But open enrollment actually has increased segregation. And many schools in farther-out suburbs remain predominantly white.
The voluntary city-suburban racial integration program known as Chapter 220 is 40 years after desegregation ruling, core problems remain:

What’s Good For the Goose Is Good For the Gander: – B. Keller | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

What’s Good For the Goose Is Good For the Gander: – B. Keller | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

What’s Good For the Goose Is Good For the Gander: – B. Keller

(“The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few” Dr. Spock)

   The loud outcry concerning the “destruction” of charter schools being caused by not permitting some of them to co-locate is both dishonest and misguided. For one thing, the schools denied co-location only exist on paper. There are no students, the school is not even open. Given this fact, the rhetoric and the impassioned speech notwithstanding, these schools cannot possibly be closed because they do not even exist!

I must tell you that as a teacher, I always required my students to present facts. I told them don’t just say, “I should have passed your class.”, show me the grades, the work, the evidence that supports your claim. You would certainly have to think and expect that people who are responsible to lead and teach young people, people who claim to have cornered the market on successful education strategies and methodologies far superior to those people and methodologies found in the “public schools”, would know this and would model that behavior and technique, but clearly those on the charter school side of the argument consider it to be all right to omit certain facts in order to make their argument appeal to the pathos of the issue and gain the sympathy of those who cannot or do not think, analyze or examine what they hear because they simply assume that if someone is saying it, it must be a fact! (See Wikipedia).

It is also to present charter schools as “THE solution” to today’s educational issues. While I have no doubt that there are charter schools somewhere that are amazing, almost magical places where education just seems to happen out of nowhere, there are non charter schools where this happens as well. It is also interesting to note that most, if not all of the people presently advocating the importance and value of charter schools NEVER attended charter schools. In fact many of them are products of some public school system, yet they are extraordinarily successful. Think about this for a minute. If charter schools are the only schools where education can take place, how was it possible for What’s Good For the Goose Is Good For the Gander: – B. Keller | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

Inequality is for Winners – EduShyster

Inequality is for Winners – EduShyster:

Inequality is for Winners

I talk to Tom Frank, author of Listen, Liberal, about the Democrats’ break up with the working class and why education can’t save us…

EduShyster: We’re going to be hearing a lot about income inequality at the Democratic convention in Philly this week. But you insist that the Democrats not only have no intention of doing anything about inequality, they actually kind of like it.

Tom Frank: The Democratic party really doesn’t care about inequality because they’re now a party of the professional class: affluent, white-collar professionals. They themselves say this all the time; they talk about the professional class as being their constituency. But we don’t often try to put the pieces together and try to figure out, well what does it mean to be a party of the professional class vs. the working class? One thing it means is that inequality is seen as the natural order of things. In fact, professionals believe in inequality. They think of inequality as totally fair and the way things should be, and they think that because they themselves are the winners in the great inequality sweepstakes.

EduShyster: There are many great lines in Listen, Liberal, but one of my faves is that whenever the kind of liberal you’re describing stumbles upon an economic problem—say, the collapse of the middle class—s/he sees an education problem.

Frank: That’s one of the lines in the book that I’m quite proud of. The liberals I’m describing are an affluent group, by and large, who’ve done very well, and they Inequality is for Winners – EduShyster:

Is Stress in the Classroom Contagious?

Is Stress in the Classroom Contagious?:

Is Stress in the Classroom Contagious?

When teachers are feeling overwhelmed, they may not be the only ones paying the price. Students’ stress levels are being elevated as a result of their teacher’s exhaustion, and maybe vice versa. This may not come as a major surprise, but a just-released study from the University of British Columbia  (UBC) is the first that has established a strong link – a “stress contagion” – between a teacher’s occupational stress and a student’s physiological strain.

The results, says co-author Eva Oberle, highlight the need to properly address the lack of support in too many schools. “Our study is a reminder of the systemic issues facing teachers and educators as classroom sizes increase and supports for teachers are cut.”

To examine the link between teacher burnout and student stress in the classroom, the researchers collected saliva samples from over 400 elementary school children at 17 public schools in a large school district in Vancouver. They then analyzed the cortisol levels, the hormone used as the biological indicator of stress (previous research identifies increased cortisol levels in students with stressful experiences at school). A separate survey completed by 17 teachers was used to asses their “burnout level.”

What they found was that students’ cortisol levels were much higher in those classrooms led by a teacher who had reported feeling overwhelmed or exhausted.

But what came first – the higher cortisol level or teacher burnout? That’s not clear, according to the study. On one hand, a high-stress classroom climate could certainly result from lack of educator support, which can diminish a teacher’s classroom management skills. This in turn can lead to a chaotic or at least ineffective learning environment that heightens student stress.

On the other hand, stress could originate from students’ misbehavior, causing teachers to feel overwhelmed and report higher levels of burnout. Many educators “have fewer resources to form nurturing and supportive relationships with students, and tend to be less responsive to students’ needs,” the report states.

Teachers need adequate resources and support in their jobs in order to battle burnout and alleviate stress in the classroom. If we do not support teachers, we risk the collateral damage of students.” – said Kimberly Schonert-Reichl.

Whatever the origin may be, says Oberle, “we consider the connection between student and teacher stress a cyclical problem in the classroom.”

The causes and convergence of teacher and student stress has been a growing concern over the past decade. Research has consistently shown that stress levels in newer educators especially is leading many of them to exit the profession within five years. A 2014 Gallup survey revealed 46% of all K-12 teachers report high daily stress. The research into impact on students at all grade levels has also expanded, as academic and social pressures are now widely recognized as a very serious problem.

“Student and teacher stress feed of each other,” says Denise Pope, an education Is Stress in the Classroom Contagious?: 

The on-line scam called K12 Inc. - Wait What?

The on-line scam called K12 Inc. - Wait What?:

The on-line scam called K12 Inc.

While children play in the summer heat, parents in Massachusetts and 31 other states across the country are being bombarded with advertisements for the online “learning” giant, K12 Inc., a for-profit virtual school system that is part of the ongoing movement to divert public funds away from traditional schools and give the taxpayer money to privately owned and operated charter and on-line entities that supporters claim are the future of public education in the United States.

But the truth surrounding these corporate education reform strategies fall far short of their advertising claims, a fact that is especially true when it comes to the growing online or virtual charter school industry.

As California’s Mercury News explained in a major investigative series this past spring,

The TV ads pitch a new kind of school where the power of the Internet allows gifted and struggling students alike to “work at the level that’s just right for them” and thrive with one-on-one attention from teachers connecting through cyberspace. Thousands of California families, supported with hundreds of millions in state education dollars, have bought in.

But the Silicon Valley-influenced endeavor behind the lofty claims is leading a dubious revolution. The growing network of online academies, operated by a Virginia company traded on Wall Street called K12 Inc., is failing key tests used to measure educational success.

Fewer than half of the students who enroll in the online high schools earn diplomas, and almost none of them are qualified to attend the state’s public universities.

In fact, a series of academic studies have revealed that despite collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money, most virtual schools are utterly failing when it comes to actually educating children.

Reporting on a major study conducted in 2015 by Stanford University, the Washington Post wrote,

Students in the nation’s virtual K-12 charter schools — who take all of their The on-line scam called K12 Inc. - Wait What?:

Insider or Outsider? : Superintendents in Big Cities | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Insider or Outsider? : Superintendents in Big Cities | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Insider or Outsider? : Superintendents in Big Cities

In Los Angeles Unified School District, the school board appointed an insider–Michelle King–superintendent earlier this year after a string of prior superintendents came from outside the district.

In New York City, Mayor Bill De Blasio appointed an insider–Carmen Farina– Chancellor in 2014 after Mayor Michael Bloomberg had appointed three outsiders since 2000.

These appointments of insiders to big city districts, people who spent their careers within the district as teachers, principals, and district office administrators, are the exception, not the rule. For large urban districts the rule has been appoint outsiders who promise major changes in course to solve serious problems.

Why is that?

Outsiders have been appointed time and again in these districts because the unspoken and strong belief was that the serious educational, social, and political problems besetting the schools needed an innovative, energetic, outsider, unbeholden to those inside the district. An outsider, policy elites assumed, would shake the system by the scruff of its neck in turning around a failing district–disrupt is the fashionable word today. Insiders who had risen through the ranks would prize stability while looking for incremental improvements. Insiders have been immersed in a network of relationships with peers and subordinates would be reluctant to disturb bureaucratic procedures, rules in effect for decades, and bonds of affection and respect for long-time peers and subordinates. Insiders would be loath to importing new staff and  innovations from elsewhere. They would rather seek new ideas and programs from sharp, knowledgeable insiders.

These strongly held beliefs about insiders and outsiders have shaped the appointment of superintendents to big city posts for well over a half-century.

In brief, the folk wisdom surrounding superintendents or chancellors heading urban districts says to appoint insiders if you like what has been happening in the system under the exiting superintendent in order to extend and protect what is working well for students, teachers, and the community. Stability and tweaking what works is the order of the day when insiders are appointed school chiefs. However, if you dislike what has been happening in the system, the dysfunctions, Insider or Outsider? : Superintendents in Big Cities | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

About the Louisiana Voucher Program, Where Failure Really Is an Option | deutsch29

About the Louisiana Voucher Program, Where Failure Really Is an Option | deutsch29:

About the Louisiana Voucher Program, Where Failure Really Is an Option

School Choice: The End of Public Education? 

On May 19, 2016, Louisiana citizen James Finney submitted a public records request for data concerning student voucher applications submitted by the initial deadline of February 27, 2016, for the 2016-17 school year.

On July 21, 2016, the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) sent Finney this data file. (Note: This file is useful for deciphering school site codes.)

Louisiana’s voucher program has a poor reputation. In January 2016, the Brookings Institute published a piece entitled, “When Winners Are Losers: Private School Vouchers in Louisiana.” In February 2016, US News and World Report published an article entitled, “Evidence Mounts Against Louisiana Voucher Program.” In March 2016, Louisiana state superintendent John White was called out by state board members for promoting a report that said vouchers saved money in the face of testimony before the board that they actually cost more.

The point of the voucher program is that it is supposed to provide a means to exit “failing” public schools. But the voucher schools themselves seem to be playing catch-up to the supposedly “failing” feeder schools. In December 2015, Danielle Drelinger of the Times-Picayune noted the following based on the only available data on voucher school outcomes for 2014-15:

The Louisiana Education Department released scores Thursday (Dec. 17) for 37 of the state’s more than 130 voucher schools. These are the larger programs, which educated about two thirds of the 7,382 voucher students. The state does not calculate scores for the other schools because they don’t have enough students taking tests. …

Several indicators were still low in 2015:

• If the voucher schools were their own school system, it would be the fifth-worst of 76 in the state.
• Sixteen voucher schools scored fewer than 50 points out of a total of 150. In most years, that would grade out as an F on the state’s public school grading scale. …

So, the safe discussion to have is about gains… gains from pathetically, embarrassingly failing to less-pathetic, less-embarrassing failure, kind of like half-drowning but trying to pass it off as progress toward competitive-swim quality:

But Education Department officials said the program was moving in the right direction: …

• Despite the low absolute ranking, “The scholarship program’s increases in student achievement outpaced the majority” of public school systems,” Education Department officials wrote in a fact sheet.

Sure, on the whole, Louisiana’s voucher schools are flunkie, but in 2015, at a greater cost to the public than the public schools that they are trailing, voucher schools are, uh, less flunkie.

Let’s look at some numbers derived from that 2016-17 voucher application data file.

7,807 students who met the qualification for income eligibility applied for vouchers in 2016-17, where income eligibility means that the household income cannot exceed About the Louisiana Voucher Program, Where Failure Really Is an Option | deutsch29:

Julian Vasquez Heilig: My Thoughts on Mike Pence and Education – Cloaking Inequity

My Thoughts on Mike Pence and Education – Cloaking Inequity:

My Thoughts on Mike Pence and Education

The electorate in 2016 will be the most diverse in history. A Pew research report released earlier this year found that nearly one-in-three eligible voters on Election Day will be Hispanic, Black, Asian, or another racial or ethnic minority.

It’s no secret that Donald Trump is polling poorly among Latino, Asian American and African American voters. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News national poll found that 82 percent of registered Latino voters viewed the Republican presidential nominee unfavorably. The Wall Street Journal also reported that three quarters of Latinos plan to vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the fall.

According to a survey of Asian American voters, only 19 percent of Asian Americans view Trump favorably. This problem is particularly acute with African American voters. In a Wall Street Journal/NBC/Marist poll, Donald Trump garnered zero percent support among African Americans in the swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Kevin Chavous, a former Obama 2008 advisor, ex-Washington, D.C. council member and current board member of American Federation for Children, has suggested picking Indiana Gov. Mike Pence could help in his standing with black and Latino voters, because of the governor’s support for charter schools.

“Bringing minority-supported issues into [the Trump] campaign could pose a real threat to Hillary,” Chavous stated in a press release. “Selecting Governor Pence as VP will bring a major education reform advocate to Trump’s administration. Pence is a major supporter of charter schools and has worked to expand them in Indiana.”

But a press release by the American Federation of Teachers took Pence to task for his support of education policies that sap dollars from public My Thoughts on Mike Pence and Education – Cloaking Inequity:

Schools Matter: Understanding KIPP Model Charter Schools: Part 2

Schools Matter: Understanding KIPP Model Charter Schools: Part 2:

Understanding KIPP Model Charter Schools: Part 2

Part 1 here.

Even though my book was published in March 2016, I continue to document the experiences of former KIPP Model charter school teachers, whose grueling experiences in "no excuses" charter schools are at the core of Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through "No Excuses" Teaching.

My most recent interview was with Danielle, who taught for an Arkansas KIPP school in 2015.  Like many other KIPP Model teachers, Danielle describes a school where she received lots of criticism but almost no instructional or curricular support.  She described a school where most of the teachers who stay more than a year are from Teach for America (these teachers are looking to have their school loans reduced by completing their 2-year TFA commitments). 

Danielle described a school that tried to turn children into "zombies" who would follow orders and maintain strict compliance to unbending rules.  She described a draconian discipline system that offered ineffective punishments and no counseling, thus turning children into repeat offenders who are either suspended or sent to a tiny room that she described as a "prison cell" without windows, which was staffed by a bus driver.  She described a school without counselors or librarians or a library. 

Danielle talked about the KIPP Foundation's active role in perpetuating a system based on outward appearances that concealed a deeply dysfunctional organization, where shortcuts were encouraged to push students through the system whether or not learning occurred.  She was particularly bothered by a directive to provide a 55 point curve in her subject in order to keep passing rates high.  She talked about a system of perpetually-changing expectations and requirements, where teachers and students could not keep up with the incessant churn of altered rules and regulations. 

Danielle described a system that required of teachers more than any teacher could ever sustain over time.  She talked of teachers who yelled at children and who screamed out of frustration, teachers who ate on the run and who remained on-call until 9 PM each evening.  Much of what Danielle experienced has been experienced by other teachers who have been chewed up and discarded by a system of profligate human capital consumption.  Danielle's story will part of an unedited volume of interviews to be published late next year.

Below is Chapter 2 from Work Hard, Be Hard . . . If you are considering teaching in a charter school or if you know someone who is thinking about enrolling a child, please read this and share it widely. 

Chapter 2

Broken Windows Theory and the KIPP Teaching Model

The limitation that was put upon outward action by the fixed arrangements of the typical traditional schoolroom, with its fixed rows of desks and its military regimen of pupils who were permitted to move only at certain fixed signals, put a great restriction upon intellectual and moral freedom. Straitjacket and chain-gang procedures had to be done away with if there was to be a chance for growth of individuals in the intellectual springs of freedom without which there is no assurance of genuine and continued normal growth. –John Dewey (1938/2007)

         As we pointed out in Chapter 1, underpinning the “new paternalism” of the 1990s was the belief that social order demanded that any rule infraction, whether on city streets, homeless shelters, or in schools Schools Matter: Understanding KIPP Model Charter Schools: Part 2:

The Gulen Movement’s Collision Course With The Turkish State:

The Gulen Movement’s Collision Course With The Turkish State

Since Turkey’s failed July 15 coup, the Turkish authorities have accused U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen of being behind the attempted takeover of power. It is an explanation that is widely accepted across Turkey. A brief look at the history of Gulen's movement helps explain why.

What Does The Movement Want?

Gulen was originally a supporter of Said Nursi, an Ottoman-Kurdish scholar from the Hanefi school of Sunni Islam. But in the 1970s, Gulen formed a sect of his own that people later called "Gulen Camaati" (Gulen community or movement).

Like any other Islamic sect under the strictly secular and pro-military Turkish governments, Gulen’s community was banned and operated largely underground until 1983. But, unlike other religious communities, which were mainly teaching the Koran and performing private religious prayers, Gulen’s group became increasingly politicized. Businessmen began to donate money and the movement became a political player among conservative and religious groups of Turkey.

"[Gulen] wrote at that time that he wanted to train 'courageous, selfless men' for society," says Rusen Cakir, a leading expert on Turkish Islamic groups. "It was about them training and planting young people in different important layers of the government: the police, the justice system, the Interior Ministry, and even the army."

But, unlike more transparent political parties, Gulen's sect kept everything secret. It was never clear how many members the group had, who they were, and what exactly they were seeking to do politically. It was widely rumored that his movement, and all its related "foundations" and businesses, were getting wealthier and more and more people were joining his community, but there was little categorical evidence to support this.

How Big Is The Movement?

It is almost impossible to quantify the size of the Gulen movement's membership or its wealth. By many estimates, over the course of some 40 years, the movement has gathered tens of thousands of supporters. 

Gulen has repeatedly denied having a "network." He has said that people may sympathize with him in any government institution even without an organized network, as is the case with other political parties. But analyst Cakir says that directing school graduates to choose positions selected by "community guides"-- members of the Gulen movement who counsel younger members -- was not something any other political party was doing.

Why Did The Movement Clash With The Turkish State?

In the 1970s, the government, army, and security services tried to clean up their ranks and remove those they perceived to be Gulenist "implants."  And in the 1980s, secular parties and magazines (like Nokta from 1986, which is pictured below) were warning against secret "Fethullahists" in the army. 

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Working up the ladder in the army and civil service, Gulen supporters helped other members of the movement join their ranks. In 2010, prior to a national exam for entrance into government agencies, exam questions were reportedly communicated among Gulen movement members to ensure their passing the exam. 

While Gulen was gathering and guiding supporters, his schools both in Turkey and abroad were bringing him fame and popularity. Critics say that running those successful schools was a "cover" for his "infiltration" of government, although raising the level of Turkey's education and culture was always one of Gulen’s stated goals. 

In 1999, secret recordings of Gulen's speeches were played on state television. In them, he called on his supporters to "silently and patiently" infiltrate government agencies and wait for "the moment" of change. "If you act too soon, you'll have Turkish state institutions on your back," he said. 

Under increasing pressure from secular media and government, Gulen emigrated to the United States in 1999. His movement, though, kept growing.

Why Did The Relationship With Erdogan Turn Sour?

In the 2000s, Gulen already had scores of loyal supporters at high levels of the police, justice system, media, education, and even the army. He was also a close ally of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who becameThe Gulen Movement’s Collision Course With The Turkish State: