Is the rhetoric around the education system in the United States making anyone else's head want to explode? I had been following the standoff in Wisconsin between the governor, its teachers (and other public sector workers) and their unions with interest, but have pulled back out of disgust over the ways in which teachers are being demonized and demoralized in the debate. I can understand why a state government might take a hard look at public sector union practices in times of budgetary hardship to look for ways to reduce wasteful spending. What I cannot fathom, however, is how that process has brought forth the seriously misguided notion that somehow teachers are responsible for debt crises gripping state governments.
Last year, I spent three months studying the U.S. education system and how it is changing based on the introduction of "schools of choice," mostly taking the form of charter schools. Since the advent of No Child Left Behind and all the way through the Race To the Top, standardized testing and giving parents other options so that they can pull their children out of failing schools have been the gold standard of saving public education.
In the process of promoting and enforcing these tenets of education "reform," teachers have received the largest share of blame for failing schools and poor performing students. The blaming of teachers for the failures of an enormous, highly variable, and incredibly diverse educational system is dubiously simplified and ignores the critical contextual factors that impact student and school performance: poverty, racial isolation, and funding for public education. Diane Ravitch points out in her book that children in low poverty schools are performing just as well, if not better than, school children in countries around the world that rank higher than the U.S. on standardized testing. It is the pockets of high poverty, low resourced schools-predominantly in areas populated by poor, urban and rural school children- that lower national test averages in reading and math.
This is not a coincidence. So long as the debate misguides the public into thinking that somehow by stripping teachers of their collective bargaining rights and privileges-not to mention their dignity and pride in the profession as a result of virulent public discourse-we can fix the school system and balance budget sheets, progress cannot and will not be made.
How are other countries doing it? Currently, Finland's education system is viewed as one of the best, if not THE best in the world. Why? Turns out Finland is basically doing exactly the opposite of conventional U.S. education reform wisdom by: eliminating standardized tests, providing hot meals and healthcare for public school students. government subsidized graduate education for all teachers (the belief is that if you go into teaching as a public service, you should not go into debt doing so), and making teaching a top paid profession (Side note: an entry level bachelors or master's degree holding elementary school teacher makes, on average, $33K per year. At the end of their careers, these teachers are likely to have maxed out at $78K per year). The strategies that have fueled Finland's education system ascent stand in direct opposition to what the United States is doing to improve public education.
If we are going to improve educational opportunity and the system itself in the United States, we must honor teachers and the profession, not denigrate them in the public sphere. If we want students to perform better in the classroom and get into (or even consider going) to college, teaching must be marketed to the brightest and most talented of college graduates. Teaching must be held up as a vital, honorable career path, steeped in responsibility to the nation for educating the next generation.
Teachers are not the enemy. In fact, teachers at every level, every day are shaping and molding the intellect of the nation. They are responsible for developing in students the capacity and desire to learn, to question, and to lead.
The battle for collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin has opened a tremendous opportunity for dialogue about what is happening in education today, and how ineffective current policies are at improving the student outcomes nationwide. But, it is also a smokescreen. The debate and dialogue over bloated pensions and healthcare plans for teachers distracts from the larger and much more dire issue of educational inequality and systemwide failures across the educational landscape. For the American public to see the former and be blinded by convoluted rhetoric to the latter would be a tragedy nearly as great as the dismal state of the education system itself.
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