A Problem with American Education

One of the many problems with American education is that we've split policy decisions from what actually happens in the classroom. I just finished reading Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System, and while I found much of the discussion interesting and even aspects illuminating, what really got to me was that there were no classrooms in the book. Teachers and students were almost completely absent - referred to, at times quoted, but never manifested. This is tragic for me, because it means that ultimately the book is still part of the top down model that has frustrated so many teachers in the last round of education reform. Maybe the book is a necessary corrective to the muckity-mucks who seem to have a life mission to destroy education in the name of saving it, but it left me feeling hollow.

The books about education that I like are based on describing schools, children and adults. They peek into the lives of the people and their schools and examine what's working and what's not working. This is why I like Jonathan Kozol, who writes stories about children with policy implications, never policy books with child implications (which is putting the cart way before the horse, don't you think?). I even liked the Thernstroms' book No Excuses though I thought it was limited in certain ways. Although it seemed heavy-handed in the policy lessons they drew, at least there were children and schools and a sober look at what was working and not working.

I can't understand why so much in education seems to be drawn from non-educators from both the right and the left. In the 1960s, the sorts of education reform programs that were instituted (instead of experimented with) were top down affairs that forced teachers to, for instance, create "open classrooms," which any experienced teacher is likely to see off the bat is a bad idea from a purely logistical perspective. Or, these days, we have the right-wing business model people who insist that we can test our way out of the problem.

I've been in three urban schools now, and they've all had their problems, but they've also all had a large number of committed, even passionate, competent teachers. Yes, there are teachers out there that need to get out of the classroom (and please, dear God, keep them out of administration as well - why does it seem that the most incompetent people get the promotions?). But there are way more good teachers and great teachers out there. Why isn't the nation identifying these people and asking them what the school districts/school administrations can do to make things better/easier? After all, good and great teachers are teaching because they love children - they want the system to work for children, they don't have the ulterior motives (promotions, political power, fame) that administrators have.

My two-cents on the policy front: Everything that happens outside of the classroom should be designed to make the job of a teacher easier. Principals should be creating systems that support teachers: school discipline, culture, tone, supplies, books, etc.; Districts should be figuring out how to support principals in making these things happen. Teachers serve the students, principals serve the teachers, superintendents serve the principals. The power and the money make it feel like the students should serve the teachers, the teachers serve the principals, the principals serve the superintendents and so because of the way power works (corrupting, and so forth) the flow of service gets all mucked up.

(Caveat: serving students best needs means that teachers have to be demanding, and it might in the short term feel like an inverse power relationship, but if teachers start from the perspective of "I'm doing this because it is in your (student's) best interest because you are immature", then the power is limited to some extent and not abused - the other relationships are between adults and thus cannot be subject to the same rationale).

Ultimately, what education policy books lack, even Ravitch's, which claims to understand and make a case for a liberal education (as in: more than just reading, writing and arithmetic) on humanistic grounds, is an understanding that what takes place in the classroom is really about relationships. Education happens in that space between an adult and 30 or so young people. It is about human beings and communities and any policy that discounts and ignores that fact is a policy that is bound to fail.