Bridging Differences

Dear Diane,

It’s helpful in some way to know that I “have to” write once a week for some audience—including first and foremost you. It makes me set aside snippets here and there to possibly write and think about. I put an old essay that Florence Miller and I wrote together about a book you and Chester Finn wrote 20 years ago onto my Web site. (“What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?”). I posted it in Florence’s memory—since she died a few weeks ago. She had a sharp wit, and I heard it in that piece. I still like that style, although I’m less convinced that it works. Given the change in our relationship, I felt uneasy at reprinting it. But it’s a useful reminder of where you and I disagreed—and probably still do.

Last week, I spoke at an “alternative school conference” in Troy, New York. Many of those attending were Summerhillian “free school” types. It was interesting to approach the curriculum debates from their extreme. But the common ground was our insistence that we find ways for adults and young people to meet together around interesting questions and projects—and the mutual respect that it assumes. It’s that “I, thou, and it” connection which David Hawkins wrote about that I find myself always going back to. It’s why I want strong adults, whose natural authority helps young people develop their own natural authority, whose passions inspire their passions, and whose disciplined “good work” lays the ground for novices honing their own self-disciplined work. It’s why I find it hard to agree with your focus on “what we know.” Especially in an age when just putting something into “Google” produces amazing results!

But there are those perennial trade-offs, dilemmas, conundrums that I realize seem critical to pass on to the young—in the name of democracy. In my keynote at the Alternative Education Resource Organization's conference I addressed the idea that modern democracy was just as “unnatural” and counter-intuitive as modern science. It’s filled with traps and trade-offs. There is no way to perfectly solve the question of whose voice “counts”, especially at the ballot box. Or where and why some decisions must be made close to the action versus others in more distant but representative forums. Why age 18? Why should non-experts have the same vote as experts? Why should an 18-year-old's vote carry the same weight as mine?

And if we agree that all votes are equal, then what else needs to change so that we all have somewhat more equal wisdom and power? Shouldn’t we all have equal leisure time to consider the merits, or the money to hire lobbyists to persuade our fellow citizens, or equal access to the media? And, at least, an equally powerful education?

One of our readers, Erin, keeps being disturbed at my attention to nonschool factors. Aside from sheer empathy for those whose lives are more fragile than mine, my quest for more just social policy rests on my obsession with democracy. Democracy presumes some—undefined—level of equality of mind, spirit, and condition (health, a place to sleep, food, etc). But just what level?

Then there’s the conundrum of conundrums—how to get from here to there. How to build a more egalitarian (and therefore more democratic) society in the absence of all those fundamental necessities? If one must create the future out of the stuff that the past and present offer us, is a more full-blown democracy a utopian dream? Efforts to get around this dilemma—vanguard parties of one sort or another—are not the answer. Yet the temptation is great to fall back on “vanguards”, and we all succumb to it here and there.

I spent many years trying to imagine how—if I had the power—I could design a test that would lead schools, teachers, kids, and parents to seek the kind of schooling I wanted them to have. As parent, teacher, school board member, and principal I was tempted to wish that the power rested with me. I gave up for two reasons: one, I doubted if I’d have sufficient power to do so, and two, because I kept seeing ways in which the unpersuaded could get around the ends I had in mind, but still pass the test!

But are there some “in-betweens”, measures that would increase the likelihood, the odds—on a broad and bold scale—that we could get schools to attend to creating a generation of motivated, creative, inventive, self-disciplined, and empathetic truth-seekers?

Deb

P.S. Remind me to get back to the 1967 civil rights agenda. That was the year I became seriously involved with schools and less with civil and economic rights. It was the start of an exciting experience in which I imagined we could change schools from below—and en masse—if only “they” gave us the time and resources. What were you in the midst of, Diane, during that period?

Posted by Deborah Meier at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Deborah,

Well, we have been blogging for more than a year now, and there was bound to be a screw-up sooner or later. The only question was: who would be first to do it, you or me? The answer is in (drum roll): It is me. My previous post (“Reports, Reform, and Hype,” June 24) was actually a response to your last post (“Blaming Teachers,” June 30). I think this happened because you were so energetic that you replied to me so fast, at lightning speed, leading me to answer an unpublished post of yours.

So, I can’t reply to your blog of June 30 because I already responded to it on June 24!

Let me take a few moments to reflect and lead us in a different direction, perhaps.

Yesterday (July 1) was a milestone birthday for me (thank you for your birthday greetings, blog partner!). I turned 70. I still don’t believe the number because I feel a lot younger; I know my mother and my grandmother were much less active when they reached that age. I still feel ready to go into the ring and take on all comers for 15 rounds. At least I feel that way in the mornings! I invited my seven siblings for a celebration of the fact that we are all still here, and all but one (who was ill) traveled across the country to join me.

Turning to our present matters, I have been struck by the fact that our blog has created a community of readers. Many of our readers comment on almost every post. They frequently communicate with one another on our site. They take ideas very seriously, as we do.

Why do we keep this conversation going? For me, there is a certain satisfaction in bouncing ideas around; in knowing that there are others out there who want to stop and think, who are willing to think with us and argue with us, who don’t assume that the powers-that-be must know best. I think where you and I often agree is that we assume that the powers-that-be need critics, and we are ready to give them the skeptical commentary that they need.

Sometimes I worry that we are too parochial, as we are both focused on New York City, and everyone knows that NYC is not the world. Yet, I see the developments in NYC replicated in cities around the nation. I see them as a mirror image of No Child Left Behind. I see school districts around the nation embracing privatization, outsourcing of central office responsibility, merit pay, incentivization, and other aspects of “the business model.” I see a steady dismantling of public education, not only in NYC, but in many school districts, especially in urban centers, and I know that the things that worry us are not New York-centric.

American education has always had problems and crises, but I can’t recall a time when some of the wealthiest people in the nation were putting serious money into a campaign to privatize public education.

The raison d’etre of our blog, I believe, is to look more deeply into education issues than others do. Our responsibility is to raise the questions and issues that other commentators have not even considered. Our role is to rip to shreds the phony consensus that encourages so many school districts to accept shallow and harmful “reforms.”

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Diane,

You've caught me remembering what wasn't there. I reread A Nation at Risk, and—you are right-- it didn't claim that teachers were the enemy within. It even gave a few kudos to hard working teachers. It's interesting (to me) that I should misremember it.

So how did we get from 1983 to 2008? I think that, in some ways, the argument put forth by A Nation at Risk is part of the problem.

First. The enormity of the crisis that they perceived and the sole focus on schools as the cause and solution eased the way into teacher bashing. While the authors of A Nation at Risk specifically avoiding naming scapegoats for the school crisis, unlike the Bold and Broad argument they took little (or no) note of other obstacles. They failed to ask questions about other institutional and systemic failures that need to be addressed.

Secondly, the report was inaccurate in claiming a "period of long term (school) decline" and tying that to the "15 year decline in industrial productivity." First of all it takes 15-20 year for the products of schooling to reach the market—become employees! So which historic period should have been "blamed"? It quotes one Paul Copperman approvingly saying "Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country this generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach those of their parents." That was inflammatory nonsense, only the last—"economic attainment" (wages)—is proving true.

Al Shanker defended these misstatements to me as necessary to awaken a smug public. But calling "fire" in a crowded theater can be dangerous. Dealing with "an unfriendly foreign enemy" easily slipped into seeing the people who ran our schools as in cahoots and demand a quick fix. Since the narrative of decline coincided with the growing unionization of teachers, a period of collective empowerment, it was a quick and easy step to seeing the unionization and empowerment of teachers as the enemy within. It struck a bell that had been used a few years earlier by the leaders in the Black power struggle in the late 60s, searching for their own empowerment and seeing teacher empowerment as an obstacle rather than an ally.

Third. The report notes that we have "lost sight of basic purposes." But no where does it take up "basic purposes" except for outstripping our foreign competitors. It's their rising tide, not our rising mediocrity that in fact is the problem. Was it the workers in the auto industry, or its union, that led to Japan and Germany's rising competition? Or was it judgments made by those who had competitive scores? The fact that we put such enormous numbers of our low-income youth in prison—at rates and for crimes none of our competitors match—goes unnoted. In fact, since 1983 those numbers have soared.

No nation—with high or low scores—comes anywhere close. These nonproductive youth have an impact on both our economy, their families and our future. What can we learn from our competitors about "get tough" imprisonment policy?

Fifth. If the economy is the only dilemma, why does the report focus on "academic" skills? How do we connect such academics to the needs of the work world? Is there something else also at stake?

Bloomberg in his Florida speech rests his arguments on the same distortions. The Texas miracle, the Chicago miracle, and now the NYC miracle. I'm glad to see that Bloomberg didn't claim that Wall Street's woes are the fault of the NYC teacher's union. Bloomberg is one of many that view anything that isn't built around a harsh competitive spirit, with easy to count winners and losers, and money at stake can't work. Maybe even shouldn't work. Further, if you believe that nothing worthwhile happened prior to the arrival of one's own new bold plans little attention need be paid to those "on the ground." Crisis thinking has that inevitable downside—one has no for serious thought, for persuading or being persuaded by the reluctant in face of imminent danger. * All independent power blocs that stand in the way (like parents and teachers) must be immobilized so that swift and inflexible action can be taken from the top. (Bloomberg should reread War and Peace.) For noble ends, short cuts in truth-telling are allowed. We remember (and disremember) best what proves our point. (Mea culpa too.)

I've been reading new books about the Civil Rights struggles of the late 60s and early 70's, and struck by an irony which I want to explore. Given that I shifted my work from the civil rights movement to teaching in 1965 I should be delighted with the slogan that "education is The Civil Rights issue of the 2lst century". But I'm not.

Deborah

P.S. It was similar over-stated alarms over literacy that paved the way for the scandals of Reading First—anything was better than the bad old days, and criticism of the new was tantamount to being anti-reform.

Posted by Deborah Meier at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Deborah,

I can’t believe that we are debating the message of A Nation at Risk in 2008, a quarter century after it appeared!

We have been agreeing so much lately that it is useful that we remember that we do have plenty of differences. That way, we can continue to try to bridge them.

This is one issue where we definitely disagree. The reason that the commission that wrote Nation at Risk focused on schools was because the name of the commission was “The National Commission on Excellence in Education.” Its charge was to “present a report on the quality of education in America,” not to propose needed changes in society and the economic order. Its chair, David P. Gardner, president of the University of California, said in his introductory letter that the goal of the report was to identify problems and to provide solutions, “not to search for scapegoats.”

Nor was the report unduly focused on blaming the schools for productivity decline. What it did say, which makes sense to me, is:

Knowledge, learning, information, and skilled intelligence are the new raw materials of international commerce and are today spreading throughout the world as vigorously as miracle drugs, synthetic fertilizers, and blue jeans did earlier. If only to keep and improve on the slim competitive edge we still retain in world markets, we must dedicate ourselves to the reform of our educational system for the benefit of all—old and young alike, affluent and poor, majority and minority. Learning is the indispensable investment required for success in the ‘information age’ we are entering.

Our concern, however, goes well beyond matters of industry and commerce. It also includes the intellectual, moral, and spiritual strengths of our people which knit together the very fabric of our society. The people of the United States need to know that individuals in our society who do not possess the levels of skill, literacy, and training essential to this new era will be effectively disenfranchised, not simply from the material rewards that accompany competent performance, but also from the chance to participate fully in our national life. A high level of shared education is essential to a free, democratic society and to the fostering of a common culture, especially in a country that prides itself on pluralism and individual freedom.

And more: “What is at risk is the promise first made on this continent: All, regardless of race or class or economic status, are entitled to a fair chance and to the tools for developing their individual powers of mind and spirit to the utmost.”

Nothing in these lines or in many others that I could quote can be construed as teacher-bashing. If the commission failed to ask questions about “other institutional and system failures that need to be addressed,” the same criticism could be directed to scores of other reports about school reform.

It is easy to nitpick a report because the people who wrote it did not know what we know now. They did not know, for example, that the decline in test scores—which began in the mid-1960s—bottomed out in 1980-81. We know that now. But they were writing in 1982 and did not. You know that hindsight is characterized by 20-20 vision.

Meanwhile, back to the ranch or back to the present. On one day, I received conflicting news stories in my email: One from Baltimore, which is about to jump on the small-school bandwagon; the other from Portland, Oregon, where small schools (started much earlier) have lost their luster.

Then this past week, New York State reported phenomenal test score gains, some in double digits, in every district and in almost every grade. These scores are in conflict with the state and city NAEP scores of last fall, which showed that New York’s scores in reading and math (except for 4th grade math) for the past two years were unchanged. Now, here is an interesting puzzle: How did New York State (and New York City) move from flat scores over the past few years to a phenomenal jump in 2008? Should we call it the miracle of 2008? From my experience with large-scale testing, I have learned to be dubious about any one-year changes that are large, whether up or down. One child may have an amazing improvement or loss, but it is unlikely that an entire district or state will see a sudden change of the magnitude reported by New York State.

What do you think is going on?

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Diane,

"We live in interesting times." A statement generally said more in sorrow than joy—and that's how I've felt this week over the coverage of the two contrasting reports to which you referred. Probably not many folks will read either, but many will notice the gist of each. David Brooks's interpretation is the oddest. It's probably the first time in my life I've been labeled part of the status quo on education! I've almost given up on the word "reformer" anyway—given the company it too often puts me in—so that wasn't the shock. It was the straight-out teacher-bashing that surprised me.

"Thinking like a state" vs. "thinking like an educator" won't do either, because—as you and some of our readers reminded me, teachers need to think Big, too. In an ideal democracy, these would be interchangeable roles for all citizens.

I'm intrigued at the anger that the statement that "schools alone can't do it" elicits from the Katie Haycock/Joel Klein/Ed Sector/David Brooks folks (the "Education Equality" report). This confrontation has a long history. In its modern garb it began with the unfortunate "A Nation at Risk" statement in the mid-80s that carelessly labeled teachers and public schools as America's No. 1 domestic enemies. (Followed later by the Bushies declaring the NEA "terrorists".)

To lay at the door of schools all the ails of society—and particularly those that afflict people of color and low income—is such a cop-out and so transparent that it's hard for me to believe they've gotten as far as they have with that message. Our vast industrial preeminence overcome by lazy teachers? (If it's such a cushy job, why, one wonders, is the turnover rate so high?) Given the disparities in health care, I'm waiting for the same crowd to propose a cheaper, simpler healthcare solution: raise standards (all citizens shall be equally healthy) and mandate closing the gaps by 2014. McCain/Obama!

How schools can build a more powerful nation and better undermine the inequities in American society are important, debatable issues. I believe schools have immense potential in both arenas. That's why what interests me most of all are the questions that Mike Rose asks in his blog; and why I wish policy folks would reread Richard Rothstein's "The Way We Were?" and Ted Sizer's "Horace's Compromise". If it were as simple as the Kleins of the world imagine, why is it that the 'best' private schools are reluctant to educate any but those who start off with high test scores? Why is it that the poor have historically worked harder—sweat more for longer hours—than the rich?

I hadn't, of course, thought of policymakers as the spokespeople of democracy, as the elected representatives of citizens when I complained about them. You are right to remind me, Diane. I usually run into them as the paid lobbyists for various interest groups, hired to turn "self interests" into State policy. There are "my" policy wonks, and there are "theirs". So I should use my language more carefully. But the sad fact is that "my side" doesn't have as many paid lobbyists, think tanks, foundations as "theirs". That's why it's crucial for parents and teachers to take themselves seriously and be policy wonks on their own behalf.

Accountability is what democracy was invented for, and the kind teachers practice daily gets closer to the roots of that idea than most other schemes. Finding the way to capture that form of educational accountability writ large is why the Coalition of Essential Schools was started almost 25 years ago. (I just left the Coalition's board meeting). Its 10 Principles were put forth as ways for schools to build standards, and for young people to "show" what they could do to publicly meet them. In an odd twist of fate, most of the Coalition's language has been co-opted—like the small schools movement—to quite different ends: e.g. standards evolved into standardization and performance assessment into right answers on multiple-choice tests.

It's hard to keep the craftsman and policymaker view from splitting into irreconcilables. It's why as principal I kept some classroom responsibilities that put me in a similar position with my colleagues.

It's why I decided to retake piano lessons so I'd remember my vulnerability as a novice learner. Balancing the particular and the more global is tougher for me to do these days when they are so estranged and when I'm an observer most of the time.

But writing this has cheered me up. It's actually been a pretty good month. The earlier "Democracy At Risk" and the new "Broader, Bolder" reports have challenged the "longer hours", "try harder" wisdom. The old saw that the best way to tackle income and political inequality is through those at the bottom working harder for less has produced two good policy rebuttals. Good for us.

It will be interesting to see how the presidential candidates take it on in the months ahead.

Deborah

P.S. These thoughts remind me that Michael and Susan Klonsky's provocative new book—"Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society"—deserves our discussing some time, Diane.

Posted by Deborah Meier at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBacks (0)