I sent a version of this letter to my representative. I’m working on cleaning it up and cutting it down.
Dear Representative Who Will Not Be Named,
Thank you for your reply to my concerns. I continue to feel that present attempts to reform education are misguided, and I hope when you are given the opportunity to vote on issues related to it, you will consider the strong and valid arguments of rising grassroots opposition to these policies.
The goal of educating children to be college and career ready is unassailable, but that is an aphoristic goal not a specific methodology. I don’t believe the methodology dictated by RTTT and NCLB is the appropriate one. The standards it institutionalizes are questionable in several regards, and the testing it requires are costly and intrusive. Their high stake encourages extensive test preparation, particularly in low income schools where test scores are most likely to impact communities. It encourages complete non standardization of instructional setting and use of tax dollars by embracing charters over public school entities and teacher temps over teaching as a viable profession and middle class career path.
While there is much to commend CCSS, it has some specific areas of weakness that make it a flawed choice for standardization. As example, it is somewhat literal in its attempt to infuse rigor in the curriculum. For one thing, it is age inappropriate in the early grades. It may impress some less savvy parents to have their 6 year old using words like ziggurat; however is it important to learn about Mesopotamia at the age of 6, or would learning about the world around them be a more productive and relevant use of their time? Does CCSS promote higher standards in this case or just sooner ones?
Also, the emphasis of non fiction over fiction in the CCSS standards is problematic. While advocates rush in (after the fact) to suggest that this focus is meant to include texts read in all subject areas, realistically, the only test that evaluates CCSS literacy is the ELA. Therefore, intentionally or not, non fiction gets preferential status in ELA instruction. Certainly, the appropriate response would not be to increase the number of tests, so CCSS literacy standards translates into private school educated children being exposed to the great literature and thinkers that inform our world and CCSS trained children getting extensive exposure to “deep reading” of the same several articles over and over and fewer and fewer pieces of great literature.
Consider also the contradictions. While federal and state policies embrace complete standardization of instruction, they concurrently embrace complete non standardization of instructional setting and internal school policy, not to mention little regulation on the use of taxpayer dollars. A for-profit charter offers to educate children more cheaply than a public school in exchange to access to the dollars not spent on the children in the state. Why is that in the interests of the taxpayer? We have no interest in the enrichment of individual. It does not enrich our children. In fact, if anything, taxpayers have an interest in the ability of their neighbors to purchase homes and buy goods. We derive benefit when our tax dollars are used to support our communities and spread into the pockets of teachers, administrators, pupil personnel, buildings and grounds, not concentrated in the hands of a few people at the top.
Non profit charters are no better. Leaving aside for the moment the decidedly not non-profit salaries that their CEOs can command, an educated citizen should be against the use of non profit charters to covertly filter children. While these schools tout their demographic as identical, in fact, they can filter easily through parental support (KIPP) and through attrition rates, so that the schools that remain public in our inner cities become dumping grounds for the rejected and the removed. I understand (better than many) the need for classrooms to be filled with students who are ready to learn, but this policy preferences supported children over less supported ones and is an explicit form of abandonment. Surely, there is a better way to address the education of high needs children than to move them around like dirt on the floor from one underfunded public school slated for take over to another? A free public education available to all at the point of delivery is a pillar of democracy. I do not see that this policy supports either.
Finally, as an educator myself, I object to the uses of “reform” to first abandon and then arbitrarily close schools, lay off career teachers and use TFA style temporary teachers to rotate in and out. This horrific policy undermines an entire middle class career path. Who in their right mind would suggest education as a potential direction for their children when we can look today in states all over this country and see people forced out of work mid career and replaced by 23 year olds who have no experience, little training and no real interest in remaining in the classroom? Where do we expect college and career ready children to go if we are removing career paths that contribute to continued existence of a thriving middle class? What trust do we expect them to have in a system that institutionalizes such blatant and cynical abuse of power?
The contradictory nature of these reforms should be of issue to any public servant who wishes to leave their communities in at least as good a condition as they found them. I will be watching the positions and voting record of my representatives on this issue and casting my own vote accordingly.
Thank you again for taking the time to respond.