Here's what I imagine the first day of school was like for my oldest child, who is now a seasoned first grader. She arrives at her new school and into a class of 20 children. The teacher has no aides or help of any kind. Five of the children speak little English. Three or four of the kids are crying. There are food allergies and speech therapy sessions. Medication and "things going on at home." And at the end of the day, the teacher needs to learn who gets picked up and by whom, who gets on each of the five bus lines that take the kids home everyday, and who goes to extended day programs up the hill.
It takes a special person to not only be able to juggle all that stuff but to do it while actually teaching children to read and write. I am not sure how such a thing is possible, but my oldest's kindergarten teacher took this motley crew and by May, every single child in her class was reading and writing.
That school year, things had gotten pretty grim. There was no money for school supplies. Library hours were cut. And this year, four kindergarten classes were reduced to three. Instead of 20 kids per class, there are 24. It's only March, so no one knows what the class will look like when school lets out at the end of May. Will everyone be reading and writing? Will English skills have improved? Will these kids be ready for first grade, where they will learn advanced math concepts, like ALGEBRA, and go from reading four-letter words and short sentences to reading chapter books?
And here we are again in March, fighting "for the schools." And it's like fighting in the dark, in waist-deep water, against a monster you know nothing about. We scream and make speeches and tear up. But it seems to do nothing, and the next year, they peel off another layer of skin and we attempt to get through another school year without some kind of disaster.
Yesterday, the teachers were handing out fliers (go to http://www.standupforschools.org/) on the massive budget cuts coming this year--piled on to the budget cuts that came last year that seemed impossible to deal with. We're looking at laying off 13 more teachers in the district this year, and we have only three schools. Rumors are flying around about 30 children in kindergarten classes, and I think, is that even humane? Imagine 30 kids, probably 7 speak only a few words of English, another 7 are crying, 2 have peanut allergies, 2 have special education needs. Throw in some asthmatics, issues at home like divorce or drug addiction. Extreme poverty, which is rampant in the county, means that many children rely on meals at school just to get basic nutrition. Where does that put the kindergarten teacher? I'll tell you where. It puts the kindergarten teacher in a special kind of hell.
Year after year, as California pecks away at the education system, they put a larger and larger burden on the teacher. In our county, there are over a dozen school districts. Our small district has three schools. Last year, parents broached the subject of consolidating districts, saving money on salaries, facilities, supplies, transportation, and food. But because we were speaking with the people who had the most to lose from this brilliant plan--the administration--the idea went nowhere. It was deemed an impossible task. So we face growing class sizes and actually shutting down one of our three schools to merge the students, but still, consolidating districts is too hard.
"Yes" magazine posted an article containing this quote:
"History shows that when the public is sufficiently aroused, actions that once seemed impossible can, in hindsight, seem inevitable." [article here]
What we're missing here is sufficient public arousal. So come on, you people of California. Don't let this freight train run you over. Think of your first day of school. It should be a joyous, exciting time in a child's life. Not terrifying and sad. We want citizens who can read, go to college, get jobs, and pay their damned taxes. Rise up. RISE UP!
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There's also a tendency to see social problems as an individual's moral failing. If we things that way, then we are no longer responsible for them. Everyone is for education when they have kids in public schools. Once you're not a parent of a school-aged child anymore, it's easier to say no to education funding, because the effects are so difficult to see clearly.
As things get worse, we'll probably see people blaming illegal immigrants, unions, and liberal teachers more. Those actors are easier to understand than the crazy rules and regulations school administrators have to negotiate as they try to do the difficult job of creating budgets. It's all so frustrating.
The public really does need to stand up and fight for our kids.
Rated and Agreed.
I've said it several times lately on various OS posts. Cutting education funding is just as drastic as cutting the fire department. It's just that you can't see the smoking ruin of undereducated children for about 20 years.
Like someone in this comments section just did.
Yes, of course, the answer lies in being able to fire experienced teachers because they're too "expensive". That will solve everything.
Anyway, thanks for not blaming the teachers and their union(s). It's a lot more complicated than that.
I thought they would mention Prop 13 in California and the way that some people who live in ocean-view mansions pay less in property taxes than I do on my little two-bedroom house in Suburban Chicago (almost 7,000 a year; 1300 square feet.) But instead some stepford force took over my new friend and she started talking about liberals and immigrants.
Shrug. I have no idea what the answer is, but we are at a tipping point. I can tell you what our new education secretary (businessman with no education background) wants to do, based on his words and actions here in Chicago. He wants to turn education into industry. Privatization. Look how much we (WE THE PEOPLE) spend on education. What a waste when we could be making money for shareholders instead. It's like prisons - great industry for depressed areas.
And hey, maybe we can then have Social Security buy the stock when we privatize that. (You know that's in the back of someone's mind.)
When it comes to this topic, you can call me "bitter mom." Great, great post. Keep up the good work!
This is not an old story. Funding has been cut for years now. With the crash and the California budget mess, there isn't much to cut without taking away from programs districts have as their backbone.
Our district has to find a way to cut 9 million dollars from its budget. Summer school is gone. We still don't know what the numbers of students will be in classes next year, or how many furlough days there will be.
But then there is a saying; you will get what you pay for. If we pay for little now, we will get not much later.
This is what keeps me up at night. I'm not the only teacher, principal, or administrator loosing sleep. We are really afraid for the future of education. We've been trying to say for years stop cutting. There won't be nothing left. Well, we are there now.
Thanks for listening. Maybe if we start to band together and let the politicians know we've had it, they'll get their act together in Sacramento and Washington D.C.
The idea behind privatization is that you can fail to contract with failing schools, rather than pouring more money into them. If the school district still owned the school buildings, but contracted for education, contractors who did a lousy job would get fired. The new outfit would hire the good teachers, and figure out how to rejig their budget (maybe hire more teachers and fewer administrators?).
I'd assume effective education would pay good teachers well and leverage their success with cheaper teachers' aides. I saw a school in England that managed their classes of 30-35 by rotating kids out on recess and reading groups. A third of the kids from each class got recess at a given time.Art and gym were also on rotation. A third of the class was doing something like a reading group and the teacher was working with 10-12 kids. Teacher's aides and very good planning made this work. This school was way above average for the area in England's very detailed analysis of school performance.
Because the bureaucracy of school management, the head teacher (principal) of this school was unlikely to move up and help other overcrowded schools manage their classrooms in a similar fashion.
Privatization is also a way to break the connection between sclerotic bureaucracy and protective politicians. I find the idea incredibly attractive.
BTW, My wildish marjoram is a prolific weed with really deep, woody roots that are impossible to extract from my clayey soil.
My kids go to a successful public school, one that we love. We have a minority white student body. About a quarter of the kids are from low-income homes. It's a fantastic school, and getting better all the time. We have great art and music programs, etc. And it's a neighborhood school (none of this magnet and "choice" nonsense bleeding off high performing kids.) It can be done - it is being done. We're living it and doing it. Privatization is a scam. It's just another a way to funnel public money into corporate hands. It doesn't work for prisons, or war, or utilities. How many different ways do we the people have to be scammed again before we learn that lesson?
I don't see anybody here commenting on why we have public education. Before "we" can oppose its privatization, we have to know why we support it.
This I believe:t public education is essential to what we are as a nation. The private entities, religious or secular, that are being touted as alternatives are not in it for education's sake. They are in it for souls or the money (and to keep the elite in its place). Is that a way to maintain a nation's identity not to mention what the nation is obliged to give its citizens?
Until now, the idea that public education is sacrosanct has not been challenged much because the benefits have been obvious. But the push by the religious right for more Jesus in schools and by the political right for less government in our lives has merged with the possibility of making real money by running a charter school, relatively unfettered by the demands of local school boards or departments of education of the states, not to mention the local teacher's (and administrators!) unions. Couple that with the availability of "standards tests" results in the web revealing long-standing systemic problems (there were never "golden days"!), and it is not surprising that public schools are under attack.
It is easy to attack the illegal immigrant. It is far harder to accept that if those children don't get educated, we will not have a sufficient tax base to run our society. Yes, let's face it: we are slowly becoming an elder society and without the immigrant, both legal and illegal, we will not have the numbers needed to keep social services.
In reality, maintaining public education is not a matter of social justice. It is a matter of maintaining our society economically viable in the long run.
Of course, since there is money to be made and ideological points to gain by destroying public education, this will continue. The only suggestion I have is to keep up the fight, even though we feel that it is all for nothing. If we don't, it will be worse.
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10 Steps to Implement Right-Wing Education Reforms
By Jose Lara
Published on LatinoLA: March 1, 2010
Step 1: Implement culturally irrelevant standardized testing to "prove" that our schools are low performing
Step 2: Force English Language Learners to take the test completely in English to further show the dire situation in schools with high amounts of language learners. Repeat this process with Special Ed. Students, this time with a devilish smile.
Step 3: Receive political campaign contributions from large testing companies to continue this process.
Step 4: Label schools as failing and blame the teachers for failing our students. Continue this process by further blaming the teacher's union for protecting bad teachers.
Step 5: Wrap the language of "reform" with language of "freedom of choice" and "helping poor students" and "supporting students of color". Well having no genuine interest in doing either (this helps make the case to the public).
Step 6: Be champion of "reform" by closing down schools, giving them away to corporate charter school or forcing teachers to give up union contract protections in order to improve schools.
Step 7: Get rid of "trouble teachers." Fire and discipline teachers who speak up for students' education rights and learning conditions. This can be done easily now that there is no union or many of the union rights have been taken away
Step 8: Receive campaign contributions from private companies and large corporations and "grants" for implementing "reforms" in the schools.
Step 9: Congratulate yourself for gaining right-wing friends and their corporate testing companies and private corporations, and for getting rid of trouble making teachers who can no longer advocate for students.
Step 10: Repeat steps 1-9, reinforcing and strengthen policy each time.
Jose Lara is a Social Justice Educator and Community Organizer. He teaches at Santee Education Complex HS in South Central Los Angeles. He currently lives in Boyle Heights, Aztlan.
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He is right on the money (and I can prove it by examining the 990s of those charter schools in Los Angeles). Yes, he is probably the son of illegal immigrants. Y que?
This discussion about public education reminded me of something I
contributed to an online dialogue about the California Master Plan in 2002.
At the time, I had just helped an 8th grade student in his research for a paper he was doing on education. His last question to me was this: "How do people decide what kids need to learn?" I added two questions to that: "WHO are those people and WHY do they have such authority?"
I told him that there are philosophical differences among people around the world as to what children need to learn, when they need to learn it and who should teach them. I even asked him how much of what he learns does he think he will recall? How much of what he learns will he apply? How much of what he needs to learn does he already know?
Who, exactly, is setting the standards? Regardless of the answer, I
don't think that raising standards in the existing system is going to
change it into anything other than what it is.
Don't we want to teach our children to think critically for
themselves, to make better decisions than we've made? Don't we want our kids going to schools that encourage and foster the different ways to make learning happen? (Initiatives come and go. Who thinks about asking students how they like to learn?)
There seems such a focus on testing and standards - how will this focus ensure the outcomes we all want? I hope we're learning to teach our children to look for meaning in their lives and not just disconnected facts.
So.... I said that (paraphrasing) eight years ago – and here we are today and for me, the same questions apply, the same concern over narrowing of the curriculum, the same concern expressed by others in the question, “Are we measuring the wrong end of the student? (seat time).
I'm from Los Angeles and I have been very, VERY active as a parent leader here for over fifteen years. Looking for something authentic here is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Some parents with students at our high schools are pleased because the
teachers like their children yet some of these same students are
receiving 3.5 GPAs and higher but they cannot pass the state’s high
school exit exam. This should be exhibit one in the argument that many parents don’t know what questions to ask or what to look for and worse, that the school, the district and the state have failed to build the requisite capacity in the school community to fully comprehend standards, assessments and what the students need to and are expected to learn. It also exposes grade inflation and begs a broader set of questions for me.
Practice is a reflection of what we value. Parents are not generally welcomed as partners in policy making and decision making in our schools. As perhaps a provocative example, when it comes time to talk about wages and benefits and working conditions for the teachers who are teaching our children and administrators who are running our schools, union representatives sit down with the district to talk about such things but the parents are not included in the dialogue. We and our children are the clients and we need to be included in these discussions which are directly connected to student achievement and our budget crisis. All the talk about teacher quality, employee evaluation, seniority, etc. raises some questions for parents about how districts deal with collective bargaining and what is truly in the best interests of children.
Schools also don't always educate parents to become equal partners in shared school-site decision-making councils; they often just don't want us involved.
Last May, I was a part of a group of parents presenting to the
California State Board of Education about the inadequate training of
parents (and staff!) which has led to a lack of capacity and frankly, a lack of trust. Parents routinely see little monitoring and evaluation of decisions to track results and as we all know you cannot manage what you don’t measure. Schools often fear having candid conversations around data and when they do wade in, there is difficulty in having a common conversation with all members of the school community.
We parents are consumers – like everyone – but in this case, we’re
consumers of educational services provided to our children. In the
commercial marketplace, when products and services are introduced, it is typical that consumers are engaged in such development. Their opinions are sought, surveys are taken, user groups are assembled and polled and certainly in the education and standards "business" marketplace of the No Child Left Behind era,
providers must recognize that users and developers work together to address needs.
We get one chance at educating our children. What are we going to do with that one chance?
Where in any of the Obama/Duncan policy statements is the commitment and specific acknowledgment and recognition of the need to build capacity in our parents and in our broader school communities? Bulletins and memos aren't enough to change long-standing practices. We must change the culture to embrace, train and trust parents and families as partners in this work. Instead of abandoning the system, we parents should be driving it.
The draft of California's recently denied Race to the Top application stated “...parents in schools that are in multiple years of program improvement can trigger one of the turnaround
options under Race to the Top”. If one were to rank the lowest performing schools in California now, one would find some charter schools near the bottom of that list.
Well, if parents with students in failing charter schools have already
pulled the trigger to place their children there yet the schools are still failing their children - NOW WHAT?
The Chancellor of the California State University system publicly
stated at the launch of CSU’s Center to Close the Achievement Gap last summer that less than 50% of the algebra teachers in California had ever taken a course in it or were taught to teach it. Anyone listening?
The bottom line:
If we parents do not take charge of our children's education, no amount of "reform" is ever going to fix the schools. Unless parents get organized and get informed, no amount of money is ever going to be enough.
www.transparentschools.org
The author of that piece works in the Santee Education Complex, one of the schools "administered" by Mayor Villaraigosa's charter organization, "The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools," so he seems to be "in the belly of the beast." He also has spoken in front of the LAUSD Board protesting the movement to turn some of LA's new schools into charters. A video of that presentation is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmVEj4idWQ0 . If this is happening at the grass roots, there may be hope after all.
(The middle class has essentially abdicated their role in public education by walking away and supporting private and home schooling. But some better-off communities have taken over their schools by creating booster clubs and partnering with the local administrators. A good example can be found at http://www.friendsofcastleheights.org/ . Of course, it takes money and administrative savvy. Can the middle class transfer this know-how to the less well-off communities? Will this effort be expanded into the middle and high schools?)
For all the talk of reform, mandates, and money thrown at education, the ship is still sinking.
My parents were both teachers, and I saw first hand the sacrifice they made for others. They taught in one of the poorest school districts in our state, and they made a huge difference.
I do not have any answers, just angst. We have meet the enemy and he is us. -- Walt Kelly (Pogo) Are people too afraid to rise up?
This is a really good thought-provoking post and I thank you for it.
R
California is often ahead of the curve in education. I'd say it is a harbinger of things to come in many states, including NJ (@crazeczar: I live in jersey and Christie's budget is already gutting ed services). As the parent who wrote this blog knows, English Language Learners need additional services. Young children need small classes so that they can get individualized attention to master critical skills. Disadvantaged children often need additional supports due to lack of educational opportunity prior to entering school. That's of course, if you want a quality education for your child.
BTW, John Lammi, you are free to comment whatever you like, but if you're trying to tell me that my school district is about to crumble because of a handful of illegal immigrants, then you're out of your mind. This may be a larger problem in some areas--just not here. And being a second-generation immigrant myself, I do not begrudge the immigrants who sneak their way into this country. The only thing my grandmother was escaping in her native land was poverty and haggis, and many people who flee to the U.S. are escaping much worse.
But let's not digress. I have a school board meeting on Wednesday and almost no idea what to do about it.
In its Feb. 19 2009 issue, _The Economist_ published an article in which it called California "The Ungovernable State." The state constitution is antiquated and convoluted, and contains a requirement that budgets and tax increases, which are legislated separately, must both pass with a two-thirds majority in both houses. That pretty much guarantees that tax increases won't pass, and the budget will be chronically underfunded. Last year, California "paid" its debts to vendors and contractors in IOUs. Can you imagine? And some banks had so little faith in the state's ability to make good on them that they would not accept the IOUs. It may happen again this year. It's not the education system in California that is the problem. The state itself is broken.
If you want to fix the education system, I think you need to step back and look at the larger picture. Maybe join Repair California, the group that is lobbying for a Constitutional Convention to revise the state constitution?
http://www.repaircalifornia.org/repair-california-about-convention
I attended kindergarten in 1960 as one of FIFTY students to one teacher. Of course, no one expected us to learn how to read, write and do algebra -- we were there to grow accustomed to the concept of school and lay the groundwork for the rest of our education.
There were a few among us who spoke poor English, the children of first generation immigrants. There were many of us with profound problems that in those days were not shuffled into special needs programs.
No one expected there to be parental aids present, but if they ever were needed there were plenty of SAHM who could be called upon. Of course, everyone in my neighborhood lived in a 1200 sq ft one bathroom home that could be purchased on one income.
As much as I would love to sympathize with you I can't. I don't live in Cali, but here in Michigan I can't afford another dime in taxes for the schools. And it strikes me that the parents of your generation have decided for yourselves what you believe the taxpayers MUST provide for your children.
Back in my day as both a student and a parent, if you wanted 15 kids to a highly qualified teacher with enrichment programs and reading skills at six years old, I'm sorry to say this but you paid to send your child to PRIVATE SCHOOL.
Things have certainly changed since then. You know, the ratio for 5 year olds in preschool in my state is 1 teacher to 14 kids. I only bring this up because although you're talking about being in a class with 50 kids where no reading and writing was expected, we can compare that to preschool ratios (where reading and writing isn't mandatory although they do work on it) and still come up with a huge disparity between now and then.
So how can we account for the differences if it is not in different levels of learning? I am not sure, and granted, I haven't thought about it for more than two minutes yet, but do you think it might have something to do with progress? Like safety belts and drug warnings? How can you keep 50 kids safe with one teacher?
I feel you on the taxes. We're many of us stretched pretty thin. The groups in California that I follow are not asking for an increase in taxes (not all of them), but a redistribution of current taxes. But look at this also: it is the workforce that is going to fun social security and medicare and keep the economy going when you and I are spending most of our time trying to figure out the remote control. That's just an economic fact. And 50 white collar professionals will feed the economy better than 50 minimum-wage workers. Like it or not, this is your problem too.