Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Thanksgiving Thanks to Teachers We Remember Who Didn't Teach Common Core | Alan Singer

Thanksgiving Thanks to Teachers We Remember Who Didn't Teach Common Core | Alan Singer:

Thanksgiving Thanks to Teachers We Remember Who Didn't Teach Common Core

President Barack Obama remembers his fifth grade teacher, Ms. Mabel Hefty. In 1971, Barack was a "kid with a funny name in a new school, feeling a little out of place, hoping to fit in like anyone else." He recalls how "Ms. Hefty taught me that I had something to say -- not in spite of my differences, but because of them. She made every single student in that class feel special. And she reinforced that essential value of empathy that my mother and my grandparents had taught me." Barack remembers how Ms. Hefty made every child feel special. He remembers she encouraged empathy with others. He does not remember teachers who stressed skill acquisition. He does not fondly recall teachers that pushed testing. What had the greatest impact him as a human being, something he claims to carry with him as President, is feeling special and a sense of empathy.

But as President, Barack Obama has pushed a completely different education agenda, certainly not one based on his experiences in Ms. Hefty's classroom. Obama's Race to the Top initiative promotes Common Core skills based instruction tied to round after round of high-stakes assessments. No one gets to feel special. No empathy here. Ms. Hefty would be very disappointed in her star pupil.

My memories about teachers are not much different from Barack's. When I was in middle school I joined the school's math team, even though I was not particularly interested in math. The reason was my official teacher, Brenda Berkowitz, was coach of the math team. My mother had died and my father would sometimes rush out to work without leaving lunch money. Ms. Berkowitz always checked that I had lunch and when I didn't she lent me twenty-five cents to buy a salami sandwich at the local deli. I don't remember one lesson she taught in math, but I do remember the salami sandwiches. Ms. Berkowitz was definitely my best teacher ever.

The National Education Association interviewed celebrities about their most memorable teachers and their responses are remarkable similar to mine and Barack's. Patti La Belle, from Philadelphia, talked about Ms. Eileen Brown who "was very helpful to my family and me. She and I became close friends and are good friends." Zoe Saldana remembered Ms. Dilia Mieses Ritmos Espacio de Danza of the Dominican Republic who taught the "importance of perseverance and discipline." Hilary Swank remembered the elementary school teacher who gave her her first acting role in a school production. Oprah Winfrey most memorable teacher was a fourth grade teacher who "believed in me." Oprah "learned to love learning because of Mrs. Duncan." Friendship. Perseverance. Acting. Love of Learning. No Common Core here. No high-stakes testing.

The NEA also interviewed elected officials, some of whom voted for Race to the Top. Former United States Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia thanked "Mrs. W. J. B. Cormany who "taught me to put my best efforts into everything I undertake, a lesson so important that it has remained with me to this day." Senator Dianne Feinstein of California thanked Ms. Virginia Ryder who "took me under her wing, giving me individual attention, and enabled me to go to a good high school." Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska thanked Ms. Hattie Buness who "opened the world for me when she taught me to read, to explore, and to question." Congressman Paul Ryan, now Republican Party Speaker of the House of Representatives, thanked Frank Douglas who "taught me more about the world in six months than I had learned in 18 years." Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah thanked "Ms. Eleanor Smith who "inspired me to go on to college at a time when the most that could be expected of me was to continue to work at the trade that I had learned. She told me that one day I would be a great Thanksgiving Thanks to Teachers We Remember Who Didn't Teach Common Core | Alan Singer:

The Fear Factor – & its antidote | Poetic Justice

The Fear Factor – & its antidote | Poetic Justice:

The Fear Factor – & its antidote

The Fear Factor

is so real —-

it is like teachers are suffering from anxiety, PTSD, Battered Wife Syndrome, and Stockholm Syndrome all at the same time.

And … we can trust no one … not our unions, not our bosses, not our district, not our politicians, not even our friends – our friends do not get it – our families do not get it.

so …. we take meds …. we drink … we use drugs … we are sick – and we are dying.

The only antidote is unconditional love for our students.The Fear Factor – & its antidote | Poetic Justice:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Protests (not 'riots') rock Chicago. Rahm covers his ass. Calls to fire McCarthy, dump Alvarez.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Protests (not 'riots') rock Chicago. Rahm covers his ass. Calls to fire McCarthy, dump Alvarez.:

Protests (not 'riots') rock Chicago. Rahm covers his ass. Calls to fire McCarthy, dump Alvarez.

Toast, I hope.

It's time for Chicago's top-cop and the state's attorney to be gone.

Anticipating a wave of protest following release of their surpressed video, the Mayor and Police Supt. Garry McCarthy put on a long dog-and-pony show at yesterday's press conference, covering their own asses and doing their best to distance themselves from killer cop Jason Van Dyke.

Moments before releasing the sensationalized dash-cam video showing white Chicago police officer Van Dyke pumping 16 shots into the body of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, Rahm and McCarthy stood up before the cameras claiming,

“Jason Van Dyke does not represent the police department...”

The statement came in response to a question from Brandon Smith, the courageous journalist who had sued the city and forced the release of the video. It's hard to believe that Team Rahm could be this stupid and petty, but they actually blocked Smith from entering the press conference. He had to wait out in the hall while a local CBS News reporter asked a question about the wider culture of corruption in the police department on his behalf.

________________________________

Malcolm London, a 22-year-old poet/organizer with the Black Youth Project 100, was grabbed off the street at last night's protest and charged with felony aggravated battery to a police officer after allegedly punching one officer. Police said the officer was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. According to the Chicago Tribune, those charges were dropped Wednesday afternoon.

__________________________________

As for that culture:

How about a quarter-million stop-and-frisks in the black community during a Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Protests (not 'riots') rock Chicago. Rahm covers his ass. Calls to fire McCarthy, dump Alvarez.:

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Testing Good News & Bad News

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Testing Good News & Bad News:

PA: Testing Good News & Bad News

This week the Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted to postpone the use of the Keystone Exam (Pennsylvania's version of the Big Standardized Test required by the feds) as a graduation requirement. The plan had been to make the Class of 2017 pass the reading, math and biology exams in order to get a diploma. The House bill pushes that back to 2019.

The House measure joins a similar Senate bill passed last summer. The only significant difference between the bills is that the House bill adds a requirement to search for some tool more useful than the Keystones. The bills should be easy to fit together, and the governor is said to support the two-year pause, so the postponement is likely to become law. And that is both good news and bad news.

Good News

The Keystone is a lousy test. It is so lousy that, as I was reminded in my recent Keystone Test Giver Training Slideshow, all Pennsylvania teachers are forbidden to see it, to look at it, to lays eyes on it, and, if we do somehow end up seeing any of the items, sworn to secrecy about it. But because I am a wild and crazy rebel, I have looked at the Keystone exam as well as the practice items released by the state, and in my professional opinion, it's a lousy test.

So it's a blessing that two more rounds of students will not have to pass the tests in order to graduate-- particularly as the feds bear down on their insistence that students with special needs be CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Testing Good News & Bad News:

We are all Paris - Lily's Blackboard

We are all Paris - Lily's Blackboard:

We are all Paris

I am just back from my first meeting as a new regional vice president of Education International, an organization with the powerful solidarity of almost 400 educational unions and associations in 171 countries that represents more than 32 million educators from preschool to graduate school. They hold their meetings at their headquarters this week in Brussels.

Yes. Brussels.

No one knew what would be happening in Paris and in Brussels months ago when we all made our arrangements to be there. We were to receive an important report about refugee children and how camps and receiving countries were serving (or not) the education needs of these vulnerable students, but the agenda was not centered on terrorists and security alerts. The world can change in an hour.

I was taken back to September 11, 2001 when our world changed. I was teaching at the children’s shelter in Salt Lake City, The Christmas Box House. I watched the twin towers fall while fixing breakfast. Shell-shocked, I got to the shelter and found the children were huddled around the big screen TV watching the horror repeated over and over and over again.

I brought my students – aged 5 to 12 – to the one-room classroom down the hall and had no idea what I was supposed to say to them. Nothing in my teacher training prepared me to explain to little children the darkest side of humanity and the reality of real-time mass murder of innocent bystanders who could have been any one of them.

I fumbled and stumbled my way through it. And after all this time and countless tragedies, it is a fresh shock each time, and each time we need to reminded what we can do. Which is why I was so grateful to see an email from Ron Benner, an activist with the Connecticut affiliate of the National Association of School Psychologists. There are educators amongst us who are specialists in child psychology, and they have studied how to guide students through these terrible events.

Not that terrible events are new. The world has a history of death and cruelty. We study it in school. But when it is before us; when it is not some dark, medieval time, or storm troopers in black and white documentaries, but something organized yesterday through tweets and Facebook pages, we are impacted in a profoundly different way. It makes us afraid. We see that this could happen anywhere. To anyone. To us. But the first step is not to fear, but to grieve, because the loss is to our human family.

They are us. They are ours. We are Oklahoma City and Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Charleston. We are New York City. We are Paris. We are a drowned toddler fleeing with his mother from the brutality of a civil war. We are connected to these images as part of us, and ignoring the grief and fear can cause great psychological harm to anyone, but especially to children. But there are steps we can take. It isn’t magic, and it won’t make the horror disappear. It’s human. It’s truth. It’s expressing what’s inside. It’s channeling a way to reach in and reach out.

I thank the National Association of School Psychologists for their powerful advice and pass it on to parents and educators and all who are called on to serve children.

All Adults Should:

Model calm and control. Children take their emotional cues from the significant adults in their lives. Avoid appearing anxious or frightened.
Reassure children they are safe and (if true) so are the important adults and other loved ones in their lives. Depending on the situation, point out factors that help ensure their immediate safety and that of their community.
Remind them trustworthy people are in charge. Explain that emergency workers, police, firefighters, doctors, and the government are helping people who are hurt and are working to ensure that no further tragedies like this occur.
Let children know it is okay to feel upset. Explain all feelings are okay when a tragedy like this occurs. Let children talk about their feelings and help put them into perspective. Even anger is okay, but children may need help and patience from adults to assist them in expressing these feelings appropriately.
Tell children the truth. Don’t try to pretend the event has not occurred or that it is not serious. Children are smart. They will be more worried if they think you are too afraid to tell them what is happening. At the same time it will be important to tell children that while the threat of terrorism is real, the chances they will be personally affected is low
Stick to the facts. Don’t embellish or speculate about what has happened, or where another attack might occur. Don’t dwell on the scale or scope of the tragedy, particularly with young children.
Be careful not to stereotype people or countries that might be associated with the violence. Children can easily generalize negative statements and develop prejudice. Talk about tolerance and justice versus vengeance. Stop any bullying or teasing immediately.
Keep your explanations developmentally appropriate. Early elementary school children need brief, simple information that should be balanced with reassurances that the daily structures of their lives will not change. Upper elementary and early middle schoolchildren will be more vocal in asking questions about whether they truly are safe. They may need assistance separating reality from fantasy. Upper middle school and high school students will have strong and varying opinions about the causes of violence and threats to safety in schools and society. They will share concrete suggestions about how to make school safer and how to prevent tragedies in society. They will be more committed to doing something to help the victims and affected community. For all children, encourage them to verbalize their thoughts and feelings. Be a good listener!
Maintain a “normal” routine. To the extent possible stick to normal classroom or family routines but don’t be inflexible. Children may have a hard time concentrating on schoolwork or falling asleep at night.
Monitor or restrict exposure to scenes of the event as well as the aftermath. In particular, monitor exposure to social media. For older children, caution against accessing news coverage from only one source.
Observe children’s emotional state. Depending on their age, children may not express their concerns verbally. Changes in behavior, appetite, and sleep patterns can also indicate a child’s level of grief, anxiety or discomfort. Children will express their emotions differently. There is no right or wrong way to feel or express fear or grief.
Be aware of children at greater risk. Children who have a connection to this particular event, have had a past traumatic experience or personal loss, suffer from depression or other mental illness, or with special needs may be at greater risk for severe reactions than others. Be particularly observant for those who may be at risk of suicide. Seek the help of a mental health professional if you are at all concerned.
Provide an outlet for students’ desire to help. Consider making get well cards or sending letters to the families and survivors of the tragedy, or writing thank you letters to doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals as well as emergency rescue workers, firefighters and police.
Keep lines of communication open between home and school. Schools are a good place for children to experience a sense of normalcy. Being with their friends and teachers is helpful. Schools should inform families about available resources, such as talking points or counseling, and plans for information sharing and discussions with students. Parents should let their child’s teacher or school mental health professional know if they have concerns or feel their child may need extra support.
Monitor your own stress level. Don’t ignore your own feelings of anxiety, grief, and anger. Talking to friends, family members, religious leaders, and mental health counselors can help. It is okay to let your children know you are sad, but that you believe things will get better. You will be better able to support your children if you can express your own emotions in a productive manner. Get appropriate sleep, nutrition, and exercise.

Again, my thanks to our colleagues at the National Association of School Psychologists for their wisdom and professionalism. The message they send us to focus on our common humanity. To allow students to express their human feelings of fear and confusion. To allow them to hear our own confusion and our own sadness. To help them find ways of comforting the victims, the survivors and even themselves.We are all Paris - Lily's Blackboard:

Choosing Democracy: A Teacher and Her Refugee Students

Choosing Democracy: A Teacher and Her Refugee Students:

A Teacher and Her Refugee Students

Every morning when I get to school, I see students from many countries in the hall. They are dropped off early so they can have a hot breakfast before class. The students speak Farsi, Arabic, Pashto, Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog and many more languages. They have fled violence and war, and their most compelling desire is to learn English and begin new lives here.

One student has been with me for three years, but this is the first year I have had him in an English class. He was injured in the Iraq War when he was young and he still bears the scars and the trauma. Other students are new to me, but they all share the struggle of learning not only a new language, but a new culture.

The students work from textbooks designed for English as a second language students. They also work on independent reading – books that every kid their age reads – and two supplemental reading websites. During the second half of class, the nine boys work on 12 donated Chromebooks while the girls read, and then they switch. They hand each other the computers carefully, and there is no arguing or play, even though some of these students are only in sixth grade.

Some younger students like for me to sit next to them to explain what words mean – words like “olive” or “bud” or “fig.” The hardest word to explain is “lap,” the kind kids sit on when they’re little and that disappears when we stand up. The students get certificates whenever they finish a level, and I have made a “race course” on one of my whiteboards so they can see how close they are to reading at grade level. They are the most motivated students I have ever had, and I’ve been teaching since 1990.

My hall is filled with a multitude of voices, full of excitement and energy. The Muslim girls wear beautiful hijabs and silken dresses and pantsuits. The boys wear dress shirts and slacks. They are respectful and call everyone “Mister” or “Miss.” They apologize and say “Excuse me” and “Good morning.” They are almost never late to class, they don’t cuss and they don’t argue – much.

Before coming to this school, I never had students who had been raised in a war zone. To me, they were only on the news. Now, they are my kids, and I love them. It breaks my heart that they see themselves portrayed in the media as potential terrorists, the very people their families fled. Occasionally, influenced by the news, other students here will call them that hateful name.

Almost every American came from somewhere else first. Many fled tyranny or violence, but it might have been generations ago, and some of us have forgotten. This new wave of immigrants has as much right to be here as anyone else, and, if they are refugees as my students are, it may be a death sentence if they are not allowed the opportunity.

Robyn Barbour, a teacher at Encina Preparatory High School in Sacramento, has been a secondary school teacher in California and Oregon for 25 years.

From The Sacramento Bee

She can be contacted at rbezar@yahoo.com.

End of a nightmare? | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

End of a nightmare? | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

End of a nightmare?

High-stakes standardized tests are falling out of favor. From President Obama and Congress to School District leaders, we are finally hearing recognition of the unintended consequences of over-testing and overemphasizing test results.

Philadelphia schools have lived through 20 years of test-based accountability. At first, it involved rewards and some punishments for schools based on standardized test scores.
Over time, the stakes for schools, staff, and students were steadily raised. Punishments for low-scoring schools have included curtailing autonomy in decision-making and imposing a highly regimented, dumbed-down, remedial curriculum. Lately, the threat has been charter conversion or outright closing.

Some key architects of test-based accountability – from former Superintendent David Hornbeck in Philadelphia to Sen. Ted Kennedy in Congress – saw it as a way to enforce higher learning standards in schools that chronically underserved their students. Test-based rewards and sanctions were supposed to force schools once and for all to address deep-seated race and class inequities. Measuring the disparities and racial gaps in outcomes would go hand-in-hand with providing equal inputs.

But resources were seldom delivered where they were needed. Instead, schools were labeled as “failing” wherever teachers, parents, and students couldn’t achieve at high levels.

Schools trying to avert shutdown or charter conversion narrowed the curriculum to tested subjects, primarily reading and math. Writing, art and music, science and social studies all became endangered. Frenzied test prep squeezed out intellectually worthy activities. Pep rallies to hype test performance became normal and accepted. So did both subtle and blatant adult cheating on tests.

The pressure to raise test scores wasn’t limited to underfunded city schools. And the pushback grew – including a national movement to opt out of standardized tests.

Pressed by families refusing to cooperate, embarrassed by cheating scandals, and End of a nightmare? | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

#NCTE16 DRAFT Proposal | the becoming radical

#NCTE16 DRAFT Proposal | the becoming radical:

#NCTE16 DRAFT Proposal

Building on our #NCTE15: G.05 Teaching Beyond the Classroom: Social Media as Teacher Activism and Professionalism and the focus of the 2016 annual convention, Faces of Advocacy, we are forming a roundtable, Confronting Educator Advocacy with Pre-Service and Early Career Teachers.

We see a need for addressing the experiences, struggles, and strategies for supporting advocacy by pre-service and early career teachers.

Administrators, veteran teachers, teacher educators, as well as pre-service and early career teachers—our stories and how we confront the need for teachers to challenge policy, racism, sexism, and classism in our schools and society will be the focus of the presentation and roundtables.

If you are interested in joining this proposal, email me (paul.thomas@furman.edu) ASAP.

Table/topics addressing challenges for advocacy related to race/racism, gender/sexism, sexuality/homophobia, and classism are encouraged.

Some draft table ideas include:

Table: Teacher Advocacy: A Southern Dilemma

P.L. Thomas, Sean P. Connors, Nicole Amato, Kristen Marakoff

Table: Guilt as Guidance

Shekema Holmes Silveri

Table: Risk and Reward in Writing for the Public?

Peter Smagorinsky, Christina Berchini

Table: Writing for the Public – Positive Stories, Critique, or Both

Steve Zemelman

Table: Schools of education in advocacy partnerships with parents, students, communities, and k12 school personnel

Julie Gorlewski #NCTE16 DRAFT Proposal | the becoming radical:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Equity vs Equality

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Equity vs Equality:

Equity vs Equality

We keep dipping into this discussion, so let's dive into it.

I hear and read people using the words "Equitable" or "Equity" as if they were synonymous with "Equal" and "Equality". I continue to see these words used as if they were interchangeable. They are not synonyms. They are not interchangeable. They are, in fact, opposites.

Equality means providing each with the same.

Equity is providing each with what they need or deserve.

Since everyone needs or deserves something different, equity means providing each with something different, which is the opposite of providing each with the same.

Sometimes our goal is equality and sometimes our goal is equity. It is important that we know which we are working towards. Equal is an appropriate goal when things are standardized. Equity is the appropriate goal when we are presented with a diverse set of circumstances.

Sometimes it's a matter of perception. When you mow the lawn you cut a different amount off of each blade of grass (equity in the amount cut) to make them all the same height (equality in the amount left).

Since education is such a personal thing and student needs are driven by such a mind-boggling array of different influences, there is almost no way that, Seattle Schools Community Forum: Equity vs Equality:

Schools Are Good for Showing Off, Not for Learning | Psychology Today

Schools Are Good for Showing Off, Not for Learning | Psychology Today:

Schools Are Good for Showing Off, Not for Learning

Here’s one explanation of the education gap, and why it keeps increasing.

Suppose you are a student in a high school or college course and a magic fairy offers you the following choice: (1) You will learn the material in the course well, but will get a low grade (a D). Or (2) you will not learn the material at all, but will get a high grade (an A). Which would you choose? Be honest.

Nearly all students (except for a few rebels), would unhesitatingly choose Alternative 2. Students are rational beings. They know that school is about grades, not learning. If they ever need to know the material they can always learn it on their own, in a far more efficient way than they can at school. On the other hand, they can never erase that awful D. It would be stupid to choose Alternative 1. By the time they have reached high school, all students know that.

Schools are for showing off, not for learning. When we enroll our children in school, we enroll them into a never ending series of contests—to see who is best, who can get the highest grades, the highest scores on standardized tests, win the most honors, make it into the most advanced placement classes, get into the best colleges. We see those grades and hoops jumped through as measures not only of our children, but also of ourselves as parents. We find ways, subtly or not so subtly, to brag about them to our friends and relatives.

All this has nothing to do with learning, and, really, we all know it. We rarely even bother to think about what our children are actually learning in school; we only care about the grades. We, the parents, maybe even more than our kids, think it would be stupid for our kids to choose Alternative 1 over Alternative 2. We would forbid them from making that choice, if we could.

******

If schools were for learning rather than showing off, we would design them entirely differently. They would be places where people could follow their own interests, learn what they wanted to learn, try out various career paths, prepare themselves for the futures that they wanted. Everyone would be doing different things, at different times, so there would be no basis for comparison. People would learn to read when they wanted to learn to read, and we would help them do it if they wanted help. The focus would be oncooperation, not on competition. That’s what occurs at certain democratic schools(link is external), which are for learning, not for showing off, and such schools have proven remarkably effective.

******

One thing we know about learning is that it is inhibited by the kinds of pressures that we use at schools to motivate performance. Many psychological experiments have shown that contests and evaluations of all sorts lead those who already know well how to perform a task to do it even better than they otherwise would, but has the opposite effect on Schools Are Good for Showing Off, Not for Learning | Psychology Today:

The Teacher Shortage Crisis Is Overblown, But Challenges Remain - US News

The Teacher Shortage Crisis Is Overblown, But Challenges Remain - US News:

The Teacher Shortage Crisis Is Overblown, But Challenges Remain

The teacher shortage facing the nation's public schools reached new heights this year, according to multiple reports this past summer and fall from major media outlets. Officials at the Department of Education have added to that narrative. Outgoing Secretary of Education Arne Duncan discussed the shortages in an August Los Angeles Times op-ed, writing:

This situation is compounded by shortages of qualified math and science teachers, which disproportionately affect schools serving low-income and minority students. In California, teacher shortages in math, science and computer education have persisted for more than a decade. This school year, California districts will need to fill more than 21,000 teaching positions, many in hard-to-staff STEM subjects.

John King, Duncan's replacement, also made similar statements at an American Enterprise Instituteevent earlier this summer. On the whole, the coverage suggests a looming crisis for staffing public schools.

[ALSO: TeachStrong: Education Groups Band Together to Overhaul Teaching Profession]

But the national data tell a different story. Last week, the National Center for Education Statistics released a report (which I authored when working for a prior employer) that shows the difficulty public schools have filling vacant teaching positions has dropped considerably over the past dozen years. The report uses data from the Schools and Staffing Surveys from 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012, which asked a national sample of principals about vacancies in their schools and the difficulty they faced filling them. The percentage of public schools with at least one difficult-to-staff position dropped by more than half between 2000 and 2012, from 36 to 15 percent.

These pronounced decreases in staffing difficulty were evident across the board. To be sure, as Duncan accurately states above, the challenges principals face in staffing teachers is greater in certain schools and for certain positions, particularly high-minority, high-poverty schools and for math and special education teachers. High-poverty and high-minority schools appear to have somewhat smaller reductions over time compared to low-poverty and low-minority schools. However, across every The Teacher Shortage Crisis Is Overblown, But Challenges Remain - US News:

How Washington created some of the worst schools in America - POLITICO

How Washington created some of the worst schools in America - POLITICO:

How Washington created some of the worst schools in America

'It's just the epitome of broken,' Arne Duncan says. 'Just utterly bankrupt.'

It took 50 years for the federal government to admit officially that the education it had promised to provide Indian children was so bad it qualified as abuse. “Grossly inadequate,” wrote the authors of a scathing 1928 report. Forty years later, the feds were taking themselves to task again, in a report by Sen. Edward Kennedy, that called the state of Indian education a “national tragedy.”

Flash forward 46 more years. The network of schools for Native American children run by an obscure agency of the Interior Department remains arguably the worst school system in the United States, a disgrace the government has known about for eight decades and never successfully reformed. Earlier this fall, POLITICO asked President Obama’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, about perhaps the federal government’s longest-running problem: "It's just the epitome of broken,” he said. "Just utterly bankrupt."

The epitome of broken looks like Crystal Boarding School.

Tucked into the desert hills on a Navajo reservation 150 miles east of the Grand Canyon, Crystal has cracks running several feet down the walls, leaky pipes in the floors and asbestos in the basement. Students come from extremely troubled backgrounds but there is no full-time counselor. Last year, a new reading coach took one look at the rundown cinder block housing and left the next day. Science and social studies have been cut to put more attention on the abysmal reading and math scores, but even so, in 2013 only 5 percent of students were considered to have grade-level math skills.

"I don't even know what to say, " said Duncan. "It's just not right."

Crystal is one of 183 schools for Native American children scattered across reservations in 23 states and reporting to the federal Bureau of Indian Education, a small agency buried deep inside the sprawling and compartmentalized bureaucracy of the Department of Interior. The 48,000 students unfortunate enough to attend BIE schools have some of the lowest test scores and graduation rates in the country – even as the education they’re getting is among the nation’s most expensive; at $15,000 spent per pupil, the system costs 56 percent more than the national average.

“Frankly, we spend an enormous amount per student relative to other school systems for terrible results," Cecilia Muñoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said.

A year ago, President Obama decided to finally tackle the problem, a decision he pushed his team to make after an emotional visit to a Sioux reservation in the Dakotas. He told his Cabinet to "establish a pathway that leads to change" and that he would hold them accountable. His Interior Department has proposed a sweeping plan to allow more tribal control over the schools and rework the Bureau of Indian Education into a streamlined, modern school system - preferably before the end of Obama's term. But resistance, both within the agency and on the reservations, is high. Critics say the changes are being rushed and poorly communicated. They warn that paring back the federal government’s role will only make it easier to under-invest in schools that, by almost any measure, need money and resources the most.

When all the Washington fighting is over, it’s possible, those critics say, that some of the worst schools in America will get even worse.

***

In the wake of the Civil War, as the federal government forcibly uprooted Native American tribes across the continent, some progressive educators saw an opportunity to remake Indian children in their own image.

One of these people was a former U.S. Army officer named Richard Henry Pratt, who founded in 1879 an Indian school in Pennsylvania, about 30 miles north of the Gettysburg battlefield, with authorization from the federal government. At Pratt’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School students were banned from speaking their Native languages and dressed to look like white students and even given new names. Dozens more boarding schools followed, all overseen by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

When families balked at sending their children thousands of miles from home so that they could be taught to reject their own culture, Congress authorized the Secretary of the Interior, who was in charge of all matters relating to the tribes, to withhold food from any family that didn't turn over their children.

In time, this forced assimilation came to be seen for the abuse that it was. A 1928 report commissioned by the Interior Department found that teachers were under-qualified and malnourished students were, in the name of vocational training, put to work at jobs that may have violated child labor laws. So the government began closing down the boarding schools and replaced them with on-reservation schools like Crystal, which was built in 1935 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

But attempts to devolve more authority to the tribes lasted only until World War II when a House Select Committee on Indian Affairs proposed "a final solution of the Indian problem," a culture-busting program that involved sending children to