So now I read that the members of the Douglas County School Board have endorsed Mitt Romney for President. It's a puzzling message on at least two levels.
First, they took pains to say that this was not an official board resolution. That part's good; by statute, school boards are non-partisan, and have no official role in influencing voter selection of national political candidates. But board members also took care to point out that this was a unanimous decision by all of them.
So ... is it a school board action, or not? Clearly, it violates the spirit of non-partisanship. While I staunchly support free speech, particularly about political issues, I have taken great pains through the years to make it clear that I speak for myself. Here, the attempt seems to be to give the appearance of institutional action.
Second, the reason they articulated for endorsing Romney was that he will help "get the federal government out of education." They're entitled to that opinion, too. But it's tough to defend.
The premise seems to be this: local experimentation, the application of market pressure to public education, will result in swift improvement in academic achievement. That improvement will then be adopted by others.
But of course, it hasn't, doesn't, and won't work like that. Everybody knows that when you move from state to state, or from district to district within the state, or from school to school within the district, or even from the same grade's class to class within the school, there is wide variance of both curriculum and instructional approach.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but after all this experimentation and "local control," the United States isn't even in the top twenty internationally for math and science. (See the Programme for International Student Assessment.)
Who IS in the top twenty? Those educational systems that adopt a uniform national curriculum.
In other words, the tenets of our school board and the educational philosophy of Mr. Romney have already been contradicted by decades of data. Our local Board and their preferred presidential candidate support a failed approach, and reject the likeliest path for improvement.
The issue, apparently, has nothing to do with evidence. It has everything to do with politics.
First, they took pains to say that this was not an official board resolution. That part's good; by statute, school boards are non-partisan, and have no official role in influencing voter selection of national political candidates. But board members also took care to point out that this was a unanimous decision by all of them.
So ... is it a school board action, or not? Clearly, it violates the spirit of non-partisanship. While I staunchly support free speech, particularly about political issues, I have taken great pains through the years to make it clear that I speak for myself. Here, the attempt seems to be to give the appearance of institutional action.
Second, the reason they articulated for endorsing Romney was that he will help "get the federal government out of education." They're entitled to that opinion, too. But it's tough to defend.
The premise seems to be this: local experimentation, the application of market pressure to public education, will result in swift improvement in academic achievement. That improvement will then be adopted by others.
But of course, it hasn't, doesn't, and won't work like that. Everybody knows that when you move from state to state, or from district to district within the state, or from school to school within the district, or even from the same grade's class to class within the school, there is wide variance of both curriculum and instructional approach.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but after all this experimentation and "local control," the United States isn't even in the top twenty internationally for math and science. (See the Programme for International Student Assessment.)
Who IS in the top twenty? Those educational systems that adopt a uniform national curriculum.
In other words, the tenets of our school board and the educational philosophy of Mr. Romney have already been contradicted by decades of data. Our local Board and their preferred presidential candidate support a failed approach, and reject the likeliest path for improvement.
The issue, apparently, has nothing to do with evidence. It has everything to do with politics.
Comments
So to before you show disappointment in DCSD BOE maybe you should look around the state. Politics have been in our schools since they started. This is just the first time conservatives joined the race. Welcome to the future.
As for you Jamie if you cared about kids, books like "L8R G8R" and "What my Mother Doesn't Know" would never be on a bookshelf for a child to read. But you did nothing about the sexual indoctrination of our children. You Sir are part of the problem!
A very concerned and involved parent Brad M. Wann.
I was trying to make two points here.
First, I think that any school board, whether trending Democrat or Republican, is supposed to focus on improving student performance. The Reoublican party targeted the Douglas County school board, and made a clean sweep. That's a political victory.
Will it be an educational one? We have data before. FYI. If performance IMPROVES, then that's to their credit. It if DROPS, then that's to their blame. Fair?
Second, the Democrats haven't endorsed a federal curriculum either. It's not a partisan issue.
Here's my own proposal:
* launch a national website, with clear national standards. Like the GED. Make it internationally competitive. Make it the best in the world.
* get teachers, as part of their jobs, to write and upload textbooks to support that curriculum. Hint: check out the Japanese model. They do short chapter books. These would be free downloads for anyone who wanted to learn.
* allow any student of any age to take a national graduation test at any age.
You know what? I think that would do more to transform education than any proposal I've seen.
My professional and personal belief is this: the more you read, the more you understand. As the father of a 24 and a 17-year old child, I KNOW that knowledge is a better strategy than ignorance.
I predict that the next two years will be ugly with cuts as the collection of property taxes are two years behind. This BOE will have their hands full with screaming blue shirts in every meeting as the BS's are so out of touch with what is going on in the real world. I think everyone is at fault at this point. The community for allowing the past BOE to damage education in our district the way they did. Decades of "social justice" and not teaching kids how to do things with our a hand out. When was the last time we taught a child how to go to College without going into debt. When? It is possible to go to school without government help you know.
We no longer teach kids to work with their hands. Out of all the kids that got to college only 10% do what they went to school for. That means that 94% of all kids that go to public schools will fall back to working with their hands. I feel that we fail most of the kids by not teaching them how to make a living. We crating very few taxpayers anymore. So as we as a nation have 46% of all people getting a check from the government, and that number growing every day. We play wag the dog with local education and never address the issue. Failure!
There's a word for that: bullying.
Here's another approach: I'll buy you lunch. Email me at jlarue @ jlarue.com. We'll talk.
I will say, as I say so often these days, that evidence matters. Corrections of fact should be accepted with grace. We all make mistakes. But we can't just make things up.
My question is how do we begin working toward this "Big Picture" view of education? The task seems nearly insurmountable? Even changing standards at a single state level gets bogged down in ideology and bickering (from both ends of the spectrum.)
I am also intrigued by your comment about letting anyone take the graduation test at any age. I would not have thought of this but it is a brilliant way to potentially educate those who may not have the maturity, drive or support to reach the standards on a typical timeline. It also has some interesting possibilities for continuous learning and updating our knowledge as we age.
Of course my thoughts also go to how much this may cost and how funding might work especially if there is always an open door (my interpretation) to the graduation test.
Well I could go on and on and on, asking questions and brainstorming about changing the structure of the U.S education system across the board.
Thank you for sharing your critical and creative thinking skills with us and thank you for keeping your comments open despite the fact that they sometimes get hijacked by other subjects.
All my best.