Skip the Apple - Pay the Teacher

“Where districts are implementing high-quality curricula with coherence and intentionality around the core, they’re having an impact. But that degree of coherence is the exception, and it’s not the norm.”

This semantic gem arrives fresh from the pages of Education Week, a source to which I turn whenever my irritation with education stagnates. They dependably offer up jargon-filled conventional wisdom to reanimate my ire.

The quote comes from a piece titled, The Architects of the Standards Movement Say They Missed a Big Piece. Well, darn. Who would have thought? The lustrous state of American education had me thinking they had it all right.

I do rather enjoy architects acknowledging that they missed a big piece. It certainly provides fair warning not to employ those particular architects again, as missing pieces are not a confidence builder when it comes to architecture.

But my rekindled fire is not because they admitted to missing a big piece. Many of us knew all along that they missed more than a big piece. They missed the boat entirely. Now they aspire to double down on several decades of truly horrid policy by putting their “big piece” in the middle of the small loophole that sustained a bit of good teaching despite the Standards Movement.

Even though these Gates and Walton-funded wizards throw in an occasional “differentiate” to nod toward the possibility that children are not robots, the entire “Standards Movement,” and its evil twin “Accountability,” are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of kids, learning, the purpose of education and the profession of teaching. Often designed by economists, standardized methodology assumes without a scintilla of evidence, that human learning is essentially mechanistic. Design the right inputs, run them through those little brains, do quality control at the end of the assembly line, declare victory, and apply for more funding.

The short article from which I drew the inelegant quote is based on a webinar sponsored by Georgetown think-tank FutureEd. FutureEd is funded by foundations, including Gates, Zuckerberg, Bloomberg, Walton Family and others among the usual ed reform suspects. The opening quote is from the CEO of CenterPoint Education Solutions, which lists Pearson Publishing among its partners.

The BIG PIECE they missed? Not enough coherence, which is unintentionally hilarious, given the bureaucratic doublespeak with which they opine about “coherence.” In English - allow me to interpret - they don’t think standards and accountability went far enough. PARCC, Pearson and others created amazing curricula and inerrant assessment schemes and too few schools and teachers used them. The Feds, by law, can’t prescribe curricula; states are politically wary of dictating curricula; and those darn pesky school districts let teachers off the hook too easily.

Letting teachers off the hook is the loophole to which I referred. In many schools, teachers, with or without the good fortune of a subversive administration, close the classroom door and do as little “standard curriculum" and prep for tests as they can get away with. I’ve written and droned on about this for so long that even I tire of my words, but these things bear repeating:

• Learning is active, not passive.

• Children are not standard, so expectations cannot be either.

• “Instruction” should be a dirty word, replaced by “discovery” in all classrooms.

• Children learn through their interests and passions, not those of the curriculum architects.

• The teacher’s voice should be heard less; student voices more.

• Every school and class has an organic identity which should inform teachers’ intentions

• There is no such thing as “grade level.”

• Every good teacher assesses every student every day. They don’t need Pearson’s help.

• Imagination and expression are suffocated by education policy.

• Curiosity is beautiful until sterile classrooms snuff it out. It is gradually eroded until about 8th grade, when it’s gone almost entirely.

• Class size matters a great deal. Relationships are at the center of learning.

• The sight of small children sitting tall at their desks, silently attentive to the teacher at the black (or white) board is a joke. They are thinking about recess, the bathroom, or what’s for lunch.

• Computers and other technology should be used sparingly, and only in later grades.

• Speaking of grades, there should be none - ever. They are meaningless shorthand. Extrinsic motivation does far more harm than good.

• Homework interferes with things that are more important. A lot of homework is child abuse.

I suppose that’s enough to make my point.

The Standards and Accountability approach doesn’t really depend on teachers. It’s like a Tesla factory - fully automated with a psychopath at the helm. That’s why Teach for America was such a big hit. Give wide-eyed young women and men a few weeks of training, pay them exactly what they’re worth - very little (I do respect the young folks who choose this. It’s not their fault.) - and send them into schools in the most neglected corners of our spiritually impoverished nation. What could go wrong? I don’t need a grant. Here’s how to improve America’s schools:

• Pay every teacher as much as the professional staff at the Gates Foundation.

• Give them everything they need to dream up imaginative, fascinating, hilariously entertaining things to do with their kids

• Evaluate teachers only on how much their students love them - and vice versa.

• Administrators can only come into classrooms in cool costumes.

• Music and art are everywhere.

• Stop blaming teachers for the problems society has created.

• Build airy, open schools that children (and adults) love to be in. EXCEPT:

• Do all of the above outside whenever possible.

• At least 2/3 of the “curriculum” should be designed by the kids.

It is astonishing to contemplate the incalculable $$$$$$$$$ spent trying to shove beautiful round children into square holes.

Just think how much ice cream that could buy!