and performer."
I can read minds here. Many are thinking oh no dear god here comes madfloridian with another education reform post....spare us the pain, make her put it in the education forum so we don't have to see it.
But I don't discourage easily. I know I can't make a difference, but at least I can point out the foolishness of what is happening to the great tradition of public education in America. I will have at least tried.
The words in the subject line are the words of a first year teacher about her year in a South Bronx charter school. This is a fascinating blog post, she brings out the details in a painfully clear way....and she shows that the ones really being hurt by some of the extreme education reforms are the children.
"Reformers" have used the talking point that teachers and their unions only care about themselves...they say their own education reforms are about only about the children.
In my view it is in reality about making students conform to existing standards artificially set by
those who will profit financially from the students. Standards that make sure they fall in line and stay in line. They are not standards about real depth of learning.
Hat tip to the Schools Matters blog for
this sad and moving critique by Miss C. of her charter school experience.In my opinion, the meat of the issue when talking education policy is how changes to our public schools impact the lives of those people in the classroom. If you take it a step further and focus on a very specific topic - say, for instance, early elementary literacy - you're bound to find some very interesting reflections from thoughtful, trained, caring educators.
In the blog post I've linked to below, a teacher with training in literacy studies reflects on her experience in a corporate charter school. Here's a brief introduction (via Mary Ann Reilly's blog):
Guest Blog: This blog post was written by Miss C a former graduate student of mine who spent a year working as a first grade teacher at a charter school in the South Bronx (NYC). Miss C completed a Masters of Professional Studies in Literacy, a graduate program that ironically privileged the arts and situated the study of "literacies" within a sociocultural framework. The charter world that Miss C describes represents a fundamentally different understanding of teaching, learning, children, and developmentally appropriate practices than what she knew and learned at college.
That is an important point known by nearly all teachers who have studied the learning processes of children....what is being done by the reformers is known not to work. It does not produce in-depth learning, and it is more like the I say it you learn it, click your fingers twice, stamp your feet 3 times type learning. It is scripted.
Miss C does some guest blogging at Between the By-Road and the Main Road.
Miss C Recounts Teaching at a South Bronx Charter SchoolCharter schools are public schools, and can be started by and run by anyone. It is not uncommon for them to be operated by people who have no background in education. They are funded by a mixture of government money, private donations, and grants, and are often situated in areas of high poverty, where applicants are chosen by lottery. Charter schools offer longer school days, smaller class sizes, and "rigorous, standards-based instruction". They also offer a militaristic and strangely corporate environment that emphasizes the importance of order, obedience, and product above all else. Everything has a set protocol and predetermined vision of result, usually dreamt up by administration. I spent ten months feeling like a chess piece, robot, crusader, warden, inmate, and performer, sometimes all at once. It was a very long year.
She titles her next section "Lights, Camera, Action: Battling the Script"
Scripted teaching was really getting started just as I retired. There was absolutely little or no freedom for the teacher to speak in the classroom outside of the lesson plans. That insults the intelligence of the teacher, and it stifles the creative responses from children which are a wondrous part of learning.
So I sympathize with this section so much.
Having worked in a school where instruction was more or less designed by the teachers, I had naively assumed I would be doing the same at my new school. Instead, I was horrified to discover that my entire day was scripted. Reading, writing, math, science, and social studies all had their own stacks of teaching manuals and supplies, dictating every utterance and activity for teachers and students. I distinctly remember a line from a four page script in one of the math lessons wherein the teacher was supposed to rap multiples of 10 to the students. “After each verse, say 'unh' two or three times in rhythm,” it directed.
Ah, that reminded me of the 60 minutes segment on a
NYC charter school. There was a part where the teacher in a bored repetive tone said "clap once, clap twice, stomp twice, clap, ready". Here's
the video from 60 minutes. That is one of the methods used by many in the education reform movement...repetitive chants and words done in rhythm. Nothing wrong with it per se...but the kids are not stupid and soon they catch on that it means nothing at all.
More from Miss C:
This part she entitles "Kiss My ASSessments: Tales of Testing"
Note the part about the kindergarten and first graders spending two days filling in bubbles.
When a charter school is "born" so to speak, it is aligned to an actual charter stating that the school will meet certain goals (i.e., test scores) within a specific time period (usually five years). If the goals are not met within the five years, the charter could potentially be revoked and the school could be shut down. With such heavy pressure to obtain high test scores, "rigorous" curriculum takes on whole new meaning. In addition to hours of scripted instruction, most of which was test-based, the students were also subjected to relentless test prep delivered from thick, scripted manuals. Upper school (grades 3-5) designated Fridays as test prep days, since the kids left at 2pm rather than 4pm. On Fridays, they literally spent the entire day doing nothing but test prep. The younger grades were spared, at least until May, when my first graders were forced to endure test prep for the Terra Nova exam, a torturous experience for all of us. Even the kindergarteners took the Terra Nova, a test which required children to sit for an hour and a half session on two separate days and bubble in answers on a recording sheet. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of it, although I did chuckle when one kindergarten teacher told me how her students blurted every answer out loud after she read them the questions. Test scores determined merit pay, and "testing season" was regarded as the most important time of the year.
Parents in some areas are waking up to what is happening. Maybe it's the image of little kids filling in bubbles instead of soaking up information that will enrich their lives. Maybe it's the tears or the tummy aches.
I had a long career in the teaching profession. I took courses, I learned new skills and ideas. SO this next part of the blog of Miss C was the very hardest to read and the saddest of all.
She calls it "Another One Bites the Dust"
When I worked in the suburbs, teaching jobs were scarce and highly coveted. Teachers got jobs in schools or districts and built life-long careers there. Unlike most public schools, charter schools do not offer contracts, tenure, or a union. Teachers sign “letters of intent”, stating that they intend to work in a position for the school year, that they can be fired at any time with or without cause, and that they are free to leave at any time. Staff changes are frequent. At my school, since teachers were more or less viewed as factory drones, replacing them was swift and emotionless--when people quit, it was often not even mentioned at the weekly faculty meeting. A face was absent, a new face was in place, and life continued. During that one year, seven teachers quit between September and May, one was fired, and five more (myself included) resigned in June. Quitting was often the result of utter exhaustion and depression; the demands and the micromanagement were often more than teachers could bear. I considered leaving every day up until June 25th, wavering back and forth on a near hourly basis and hanging on only by desperate determination to see the year through and a begrudging sense of obligation toward my students. Those who left earlier forfeited two months worth of salary they would have been paid if they’d given 30 days notice (we were paid over 12 months). Out of those seven teachers, only two had new jobs lined up. The other five opted for unemployment.
Teachers came and went, not even an acknowledgement of their presence or lack of presence. No way for the little ones to get comfortable with a teacher or develop a rapport with them. That's a negative thing.
This is how the new "reforms" work all too often. There are exceptions, but not very many.
I have seen the way governors and education commissioners have talked down to and treated teachers as though they did not have the brains to come in out of the rain. No one in leadership speaks out in support of the teachers, no one says enough is enough.
The worst of it is the contempt for teachers, the outward display of it, the lack of anyone speaking in teachers' behalf...the worst began two years ago. It could be stopped.
I doubt it will
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