I heard Arne Duncan on the radio touting reforms and chastising schools for failing to compete for the free money. He said in the next sentence "they need to earn it." If it's earned, it's not free. Arne Duncan isn't that smart. Educated, perhaps, but far from intelligent.
However, I want to point out some reasons why Race to the Top (aka NLCB 2.0) will lead our students to the bottom:
1. Extrinsic motivation doesn't motivate quality teachers. Good teachers tend to value autonomy, responsibility and creative control. This does the opposite. It forces teachers to pimp out the sacred for a few silver coins.
2. Innovation takes time. Flashy programs with skewed data will suck away the funds, essentially forcing districts to engage in sketchy marketing practices.
3. If it works, it will pull quality teachers out of bad schools. If they reward schools that are already doing well and cut funding from schools doing poorly, this will eventually mean great teachers leave bad schools.
4. A focus on STEM ignores AHEM (Arts, History, English and Music) and in the process ignores every aspect of a classical education. In an era when Wall Street has proven far from ethical, the goal of thinking well about life might not seem like such a bad idea. In addition, at a time when we have a large ELL population, ignoring English might not seem like a genius idea, either.
5. In the "New Economy" where creativity is a valuable asset, we are stepping away from all things creative and forcing students to move back into a rote memorization style of learning.
6. The proponents of Race to the Top ignore the data about the value of the arts and music in conceptual and skill-based understanding of music and engineering. They ignore the data about the failure of most charter schools. Data is a lot like the Bible; you can use it to say whatever you want (and Arne Duncan is the Pat Robertson of educational reform)
7. Standardized tests are one of the worst ways to measure student learning and Race to the Top continues to use this data simply because it allows those in charge to labor under the belief that they are using a common measurement and therefore promoting equity.
8. It will create more red tape, which is the very thing that is causing this whole mess in the first place. At our school we have to have a Language Acquisition Specialist if we want to keep our Title One money. Our LAS is great, but I think that she'd be better off working with students in the classroom.
9. All of the testing and the test prep is currently getting in the way of true learning time. Pulling a plant up every half hour to measure the roots isn't the best way to measure growth.
10. This will quickly become another way for large transnational corporations to hijack publicly funded schools.
2 comments:
So true!!!
Plus, why should teachers and schools have to compete for money?
How about this Mr. Duncan - ask school districts and states to provide a list of their needs and then give them their share of the federal money to take care of those needs. Pretty easy, huh?
Dave
http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com
THANK YOU for saying what needs to be said. Duncan and Obama came to my city (Madison, WI) and visited a middle school -- one of 2 charter schools in Madison -- to promote "race to the top". I was appalled when they spoke to schoolchildren about "getting rid of your bad teachers" and sickened when not a week later our Democrat-controlled legislature voted to do away with the "firewalls" that protected Wisconsin teachers from being evaluated based on our students' achievement.
And I agree with commenter Dave about schools competing for money. Shouldn't education funding be an entitlement? Something smart societies recognize, that our children are our future? At the very least that these children whom we're denying access to education now may be the very ones that are wiping the dribble off our chins (and worse) when we are old and infirm and our own kids don't want to take care of us? (OK, a little tongue in cheek right there to make my point.)
Race to the Top™ is simply another boondoggle, another way to funnel $$ to the people who do not need or deserve it, and away from children and schools. More back door privatization.
Post a Comment