Response to Detroit News Editorial ""Michigan must pass education bills or fall behind other states" on December 15, 2009.
Can we assume that this News sponsored crap shoot-a chance at federal dollars that "might" become available "if" Michigan can qualify for the federal dole from the Obama Administration-is worth the cost of towing under to "government coercion?"
If the changes insisted upon by the News are passed into law what do we get in return? We just get a chance to be "eligible to compete for the (Feds) money." Nothing more.
The Detroit News is asking the good citizens to lower the standards the vast majority of Michigan public schools hold high and achieve, just to qualify to take a chance/a long shot on a "federal grant/bribe" ? And if we get a portion of the dangled money, we get a boatload of new and much maligned "government red tape,” mandates, and paperwork, more bureaucracy.
"Without schools that work, the state is doomed to endless decline," wrote the editorial board of the News at the end of its impassioned pitch for the Obama plan.
Are we to assume the News is so deranged as to be dissatisfied with the achievement of the vast majority of Michigan's local neighborhood schools? Disaggregated from the majority of districts are those schools which have just been singled out by the News for the heaviest of condemnation and criticism.
Let's directly address that issue.
We know where the failing schools are and we know a good deal about why they fail.
We also know that we are at a loss to find a way to punish failing schools into excellence, Leave No Child Behind didn't do it. The last few decades are full of such punitive measures and executive take-overs.
There Must Be a Better Way
The dictates of Chicagoan Erne Duncan's new "magic" scheme are not the answer. The ingredients of The Race to the Top contain very negative and counter intuitive edicts that are designed to "reform" the most desperate of underachieving schools in the most recalcitrant and difficult socio-economic environments, but do nothing for the schools that do the job well. R2T will actually reverse and undermine the proven progress and standards of all those other healthy and highly achieving local public schools across this state, achieving districts will be undercut by many the many negatives in R2T.
The News Takes An Unbelievable Reversal of It's Own "Conservative" Ideology
The very fact that the Detroit News-always closely aligned with the News' cathouse "think tank" cohorts such as Cato, the Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, the Mackinac Center and a whole host of national tax-hating cranks and would beg both Republicans and Democrats in the statehouse-to fall in line with the "socialist" Obama U.S. Department of Education on the their latest-and-greatest federal program-Race to the Top and push hard to pass it-defies almost every published tome and "conservative" principle the News has stood for in the last 30 years.
This national economic crisis and the failure of manufacturing in Michigan has created some strange bedfellows and this "marriage of convenience" to achieve, by way of the back door, certain long sought anti-MEA goals of the News has produced a lollapalooza of a nuptial arrangement.
Let's Get Down to Brass Tacks
All those teacher preparation courses and student teaching requirements practiced by Michigan's colleges and universities are a total failure and need to be wiped out.
Back in 2001 an article appeared entitled "
The Teachers We Need and How to Get More of Them" postulated the following:
"We conclude that the regulatory strategy being pursued today to boost teacher quality is seriously flawed. "
Every additional requirement for prospective teachers -- every additional pedagogical course, every new hoop or hurdle -- will have a predictable and inexorable effect: it will limit the potential supply of teachers by narrowing the pipeline while having no bearing whatever on the quality or effectiveness of those in the pipeline. The regulatory approach is also bound, over time, to undermine the standards-and-accountability strategy for improving schools and raising student achievement. The News:
"A better solution to the teacher quality problem is to simplify the entry and hiring process. Get rid of most hoops and hurdles. Instead of requiring a long list of courses and degrees, test future teachers for their knowledge and skills. Allow principals to hire the teachers they need. Focus relentlessly on results, on whether students are learning. This strategy, we are confident, will produce a larger supply of able teachers and will tie judgments about their fitness and performance to success in the classroom, not to process or impression."
Let's go for outcomes, not state credentials or legislated high standards.
In simple English, teacher certification requirements and the huge cost of candidates qualifying for accreditation and a credential is a total waste of money, if we follow the logic of R2T's non-certified instructor plan.
In fact, let's just let any person a specific principal likes, with a degree, come in and attempt to prove that she/he has the ability to effectively apply their knowledge in the public school class room, without certification or special training and an extended supervised internship (a total of 5 years of preparation).
Let's let un-certified individuals turn the pupils into "experimental education guinea pigs" as a novel way to solve, go for the quick-fix, or satisfy our objections about and critic's problems with organized teachers and all those "heads-in-the-clouds" academics in the state's premiere teacher training programs. It's cheaper and it'll be a super smack down for teacher unions.
The Road to Real Outcomes: Systemic Reform of School Administration and Governance
Systemic reform has not occurred in the state of Michigan and won't until the legislature begins a sweeping investigation and overhaul of how Michigan's public schools are administered.
The Republicans' dirty little secret concerning school reform is they refuse to confront the real core problem in public school performance and operations: School Administration and Administrative Practices. The reason is simple and outdated, Republicans invariably take a management position on such issues.
The Michigan GOP would have the public believe that the problems which are connected with the community schools are created by the teachers. It's the teachers who resist change, who fail to give a full effort and who are lax on discipline, Republicans are fond of complaining.
A reality check would reveal that teachers don't hire, evaluate, or fire other teachers. They don't set policy, they don't allocate and spend funds, they don't approve the curriculum. These are the dominion of school administration.
Oddly enough, because the GOP has a steadfast, fixed management viewpoint and bias, after many years of trumpeting school reform, demonstrative "systemic reform" has not occurred in the state of Michigan and won't until the Republicans begin a sweeping investigation and overhaul of how the public schools are administered.
Blamespeaking and bad mouthing the teachers by scapegoating is a cruel blow to our children's mentors.
Blame distances the teacher from the parent and child, demeans the profession in the eyes of the public and worsens the situations and conditions, created, compounded, and enforced by administration and their top-down industrial management strategies (largely unchanged since the 19th century).
But because the teacher cares enough to get involved in the public policy realm and financially supports politicians who most closely pursue the policies and practices which help children and families get an excellent education, they are feared and maligned by the
bottomline:
spreadsheet thinking of the mindless radicals now in control of the Michigan Republican party and a host of think tanks (state and national) chipping for some direct economic or political advantage from this present crisis.
If we want to see meaningful change in the outcomes for our children we are going to have to demand a meaningful change in public school administrative accountability and practices in Michigan.
Original Post.
