2021 Medley #11 – Surprise, there’s a teacher shortage

The teacher shortage continues,

COVID losses, PDK poll,

High-achieving schools, Evolution

 

TEACHER SHORTAGE? SURPRISE!

Four reasons why schools are facing crippling shortages

Chalkbeat, whose “supporters” include privatizers like the Walton Family, the Gates Foundation, and EdChoice, report here on the ongoing teacher shortage made worse by the pandemic. Their explanation focuses on the combination of low pay and the weak economy — which are, indeed, part of the problem. I think that a more important set of reasons, however, are how teachers have been treated due to lack of respect by the public (and politicians…and the media), and the impact of privatization on public education. After you read this, check out the next article on the same topic.

The staffing shortage has become a defining feature of this school year. Non-teaching, often lower-paid roles seem to have been particularly hard to fill.

“It is affecting the whole climate of the schools,” said Sabine Phillips, whose middle school in Broward County, Florida has buses regularly arriving late and few substitute teachers. “It’s just hard to keep people in a positive mood.”

So what is going on here? There’s no one answer, according to a range of experts watching these shortages nationwide, but a constellation of potential explanations. Some are exacerbated versions of old problems: schools need people to choose challenging roles with relatively low pay. Other explanations are new, like federal money boosting demand for educators, the continued disruption to childcare, and COVID-related health concerns.

‘Exhausted and underpaid’: teachers across the US are leaving their jobs in numbers

Quoted here is Steven Singer, blogger at Gadfly on the Wall Blog (and author of the next post as well). As an actual, current, real-life, teacher, he has a good handle on the reasons for the teacher shortage — the pandemic, of course, is one, but also, he says, we need to remember low pay, low respect, low autonomy, and lack of a professional voice. All these are part of teaching in Indiana and the supermajority of privatizers in the state’s General Assembly guarantees that it will stay that way. Chalkbeat, take note.

“They don’t give us numbers or report it but we see in our buildings how we’re all needed to sub for missing teachers. It’s way more than normal,” said Steven Singer, a middle school teacher in western Pennsylvania. “I, myself, was in and out of the hospital last week due to my Crohn’s disease. The stress of the pandemic is taking a toll on me and all of us. We’re just at a breaking point. This crisis for teachers didn’t start with Covid. We have low pay, low respect, low autonomy, and no one listens to us. Now we’re being forced to risk our lives and our health.”

At least 378 active teachers have died from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, along with hundreds of other school workers. Several surveys have shown teachers are more likely to leave the profession because of worsening stressand burnout during the pandemic, coupled with pre-existing issues such as a lack of resources and low pay.

COVID LOSSES

My Students Haven’t Lost Learning. They’ve Lost Social and Emotional Development

Teachers have been telling the public for years that there’s more to education than “reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic.” There are things that go on in classrooms that are more important than test scores. The “loss” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is more than just content area loss, which can be made up. The loss is emotional…parents, relatives, and friends lost to COVID-19. The loss is social isolation from being quarantined. Students have to learn to deal with those losses before so-called “learning loss.”

According to the CDC, more than 140,000 children in the U.S. lost a primary or secondary caregiver such as a live-in grandparent or another family member to the virus.

Globally, that’s more than 1.5 million kids who have lost a parent, guardian or live-in relative to the pandemic, according to the Lancet.

No wonder kids are having trouble dealing with their emotions! Their support systems are shot!

My students are bright, caring, energetic and creative people. They have the same wants and needs as children always have. They just have fewer tools with which to meet them.

Administrators often focus on academic deficits.

They worry about learning loss and what the kids can’t do today versus students in the same grades before the pandemic. But I think this is a huge mistake.

My students are not suffering from a lack of academics. They’re suffering from a lack of social and emotional development.

PARENTS APPRECIATE THEIR LOCAL SCHOOLS

PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools
A supplement to Kappan magazine

Every time the PDK poll is released we learn that the majority of Americans (and even more public school parents) love their local schools…it’s “those other schools” elsewhere in the country that are, apparently, terrible. This year is no different. Why is that? Could it be that we are being given poor quality information about schools in other places? Could it be that we know our own children’s schools and appreciate the work that is done there?

Majorities of Americans give high marks to their community’s public schools and public school teachers for their handling of the coronavirus pandemic during the 2020-21 school year. Further, the public is broadly confident in schools’ preparedness to handle the challenges ahead in 2021-22.
Teachers fare especially well in these assessments. About two-thirds of adults overall, and as many K-12 public school parents, give their community’s public school teachers an A or B grade for their pandemic response. Parents are almost as positive about their community’s public schools more generally, giving 63% A’s or B’s, though the positive rating slips to 54% among all Americans.

As is customarily the case, public schools nationally — as opposed to schools or teachers in one’s own community — fare less well, with about 4 in 10 adults overall, and parents in particular, giving them A or B grades for their pandemic response.

HIGH ACHIEVING SCHOOLS MAY BE TOXIC

The Toxic Consequences of Attending a High-Achieving School

Toxic high-achieving schools…

Students at high-achieving schools exhibit much higher rates of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse than those at lower achieving schools…

The harmful effects of attending a high-achieving school are long-lasting…

The toxic achievement pressure for HAS students comes from parents, teachers, peers, and ultimately from within the student.

US ACCEPTANCE OF EVOLUTION PASSES FIFTY PERCENT

Evolution now accepted by a majority of Americans

Science, not religion, ought to be the determining factor in what’s taught in our public schools. But citizens of the US have always had a difficult time separating church and state, despite the protections of the First Amendment. Included among the topics attacked by the science-deniers is evolution. Education is the key. [Note: I added the link in the quote below]

Examining data over 35 years, the study consistently identified aspects of education — civic science literacy, taking college courses in science, and having a college degree — as the strongest factors leading to the acceptance of evolution.

“The more education you have, the more likely you are to accept evolution,” observed co-author Glenn Branch, deputy director of NCSE, adding, “The proportion of Americans with a college degree almost doubled between 1988 and 2018.”

The researchers analyzed a collection of biennial surveys from the National Science Board, several national surveys funded by units of the National Science Foundations, and a series focused on adult civic literacy funded by NASA. Beginning in 1985, these national samples of U.S. adults were asked to agree or disagree with this statement: “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.”

The series of surveys showed that Americans were evenly divided on the question of evolution from 1985 to 2007. According to a 2005 study of the acceptance of evolution in 34 developed nations, led by Miller, only Turkey, at 27%, scored lower than the United States. But over the last decade, until 2019, the percentage of American adults who agreed with this statement increased from 40% to 54%.

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Thinking Strike

TEACHER STRIKES

They went on strike in West Virginia and Oklahoma. They went on strike in Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Oakland…in Kentucky, North Carolina, and Arizona.

All over the country teachers are standing up and walking out. Sure, it’s about salaries, but it’s also about class size, wrap-around services, and pensions. It’s also about teachers’ students and their own children.

The strikes are in response to years of neglect. Teachers are tired of being disrespected. They’re tired of seeing their students left behind by shrinking budgets. Teachers are tired of seeing funds meant for their schools and their students being used for private, religious, and privately run charter schools. Scores of teachers are leaving their profession in frustration. Those who have stayed are standing up and fighting back.

INDIANA

States aren’t able — or willing — to invest the money needed to fully fund their public education systems. Indiana, for example, has yet to see its school funding reach the level it was at before the 2008 recession. Indiana teachers earn almost 16 percent less than they did in the 1999-2000 school year when adjusted for inflation. The state’s Republican majority began the 2019 legislative year calling for teacher raises, but the Republican-dominated Indiana House sent a budget bill to the (also Republican-dominated) Senate which offers schools a scant 2.1% increase…only slightly more than 2018’s inflation rate of 1.9%. At that rate, it will take decades for teachers to reach salaries equivalent to those in 1999-2000. There seems to be, on the other hand, plenty of money for the privatization of education. Hoosier legislators have had no trouble increasing the amount of money for charter and voucher schools each year.

Why haven’t Indiana teachers walked out? Former state senator Tim Skinner thinks they ought to.

Former Senator: Teachers should think strike

[Skinner] believes that public education has been the target of the Republican Party for the past 15 years and refers to “senseless budget cuts, expansion of vouchers and crippling regulations.”

Furthermore, he doesn’t believe the Indiana State Teachers Association is taking a strong enough stand in response.

In an interview with the Tribune-Star on Feb. 22, ISTA president Teresa Meredith noted that many teachers across the state are calling for a walkout to raise awareness about the need to improve public school funding and teacher pay.

But she also stated, “I really want to avoid that.” She believes other options must be used first, including a rally at the Statehouse March 9.

Skinner believes Meredith “is exactly wrong about what teachers should be doing. Teachers have been turning the other cheek for the last 15 years, and the ISTA still doesn’t realize that they are getting the hell beat out of them,” he wrote in an email to the Tribune-Star.

PDK-GALLUP POLL

According to the 2018 PDK-Gallup poll the public supports teachers and their right to strike. Two-thirds of Americans agree that teachers deserve a raise. Nearly four of five Americans would support their local teachers in a strike for higher pay.

For the first time in nearly 50 years, American parents would prefer that their children not become teachers. Why not? Because of the pay, mostly. Also, I think, because of the lack of respect given to teachers, lack of job security, and the lack of support when on the job. Those are the reasons there is a serious teacher shortage in Indiana and around the country.

Indiana’s (and America’s) children need enthusiastic, well-trained teachers more than ever, but the number of college students going into education has continued to drop. Who will teach tomorrow’s students? Will the state further lower the qualifications for teaching so more people who aren’t actually qualified will teach? Lower qualifications will help fill classrooms with adult bodies, but how will that help student achievement?

Starting in 2011 Indiana teachers lost their seniority rights and most of their collective bargaining options. Most importantly, the legislature, filled with adults who only remember education from the point of view of a student, decided what and how teachers are supposed to teach but blamed teachers when student achievement didn’t soar.

TEACHING ATTRACTIVENESS

How does Indiana compare to other states?

Understanding Teacher Shortages: 2018 Update

The Learning Policy Institute has an interactive…

…map [which] highlights a number of key factors that reflect and influence teacher supply and attrition and signal whether states are likely to have an adequate supply of qualified teachers to fill their classrooms. Based on these data—which treat compensation, teacher turnover, working conditions, and qualifications—each state is assigned a “teaching attractiveness rating,” indicating how supportive it appears to be of teacher recruitment and retention and a “teacher equity rating,” indicating the extent to which students, in particular students of color, are assigned uncertified or inexperienced teachers.

Each state gets a “teaching attractiveness rating” — a number between 1 and 5 with 1 being the least attractive.

Indiana’s teaching attractiveness rating is 1.9. Arizona, at 1.3, is the only state with a “teaching attractiveness rating” that is lower than Indiana’s. Three states where teachers went on strike in 2018 are all higher…

• Kentucky: 4.05

• West Virginia: 2.73

• Oklahoma: 3

Will Indiana’s teachers stand up for themselves and their students? Will they decide that turning the other cheek…and…getting the hell beat out of them is not helping them or the students in their classrooms.

Maybe Tim Skinner is right.

“They need to stop promoting vouchers and stop promoting every single form of education in Indiana except public education,” he said. “Stop for awhile and evaluate to see what good this 15-year reform movement has done for public schools … and recognize it’s damaged public schools.”

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Just in Case Someone’s Listening

Today is the twelfth anniversary of this blog (see my main blog page, here). In the last dozen years of blogging, the education world hasn’t changed significantly. I started writing in the middle of the No Child Left Behind era, didn’t stop during Race to the Top, and continue now in the era of Betsy the Billionaire.

The sad news is that things have gotten worse for public education since I started writing here in 2006. We’re still dealing with privatization, union busting, teacher scapegoating, the overuse and misuse of tests, and the lack of funding or support for public schools. When we add to that, a teacher shortage designed and implemented by those same “reformers,” the task of saving our schools seems overwhelming.

I should probably rename this blog, “The Dead Horse Blog,” “Think Like Sisyphus,”  “The Wall: Beat Your Head Here,” or maybe simply “Belabored.”

On the other hand, my mission, when I began here, was to have a place to vent. It still works for that despite the depressing political and educational landscape. And who knows, maybe last year’s “Teachers’ Spring” will catch on and the teachers in Indiana will rise up. So I’ll keep going…just in case someone is listening.

Here are a dozen things I wrote in the early years of this blog…mostly about things that haven’t changed yet.

How to Guarantee School Improvement – September 2009

And here’s another idea to guarantee that no child would be left behind…

Legislators, other politicians, and policymakers who are responsible for public education policy must send their children to the lowest performing traditional public school in their home district.

If they did that, I would bet my retirement that America’s public school system would become the envy of the world.

 

Teaching is Doing – January 2014

Nearly half of all teachers leave the field within their first 5 years. Many find out the hard way that they aren’t cut out for teaching…or that it’s not as easy as they thought it would be. Many didn’t realize that it’s not a 6 hours a day, 9 months a year job, but one that takes hours and hours of preparation, thought and work. Many can’t handle the emotional investment in the lives of children.

The old adage which states that “those who can’t, teach” has it backward. Teaching is doing…and it’s those who can’t who must move on to some other, less important line of work.

 

American Schools are Not Failing – October 2014

Homeless children comprise one of the fastest growing demographics in America’s public schools. We know that poverty has a negative effect on student achievement, and homeless students, like other students who live in poverty, have lower achievement levels and a higher dropout rate than children from middle-class families.

Politicians and policymakers can’t solve the problem of homelessness, hunger, and poverty. They dump it on the public schools, and then blame teachers, schools, and students when the problems don’t go away.

American schools are not failing…American policies towards unemployment, poverty, and homelessness are failing.

 

If I Could Go Back and Do It Again – March 2010

This quote names my biggest teaching frustration, written a few months before I retired. Now, eight years later, when I think about the years I spent teaching I try to remember the successes I had – and there were many – but it’s hard to forget the failures. I regret 1) not being able to help all the children I wanted to help, and 2) my failure to reach all the students I should have been able to reach.

My biggest teaching frustration has been allowing myself to do things in the classroom which, while mandated by federal, state and/or local authorities, were things that I knew were not in the best interests of my students.

 

Where Are All the Failing Schools – August 2010

This quote refers to the PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitude Toward the Public Schools. The most recent poll put the respondents who grade their school an A, B, or C, at 81%. Local schools continue to poll well, and even higher for those who know the schools best – parents of public school students.

A majority of 82% of the respondents to the poll do NOT see their local schools as failing giving them a grade of A, B or C. 49% scored their local schools as an A or a B. In other words, the school we know best we score higher than the schools we don’t know. We’re very negative about the quality of schools nationwide. But if such a high percentage of people are giving their own schools average to above average ratings where are all the schools that are doing so poorly?

 

Time For Some Therapy – March 2011

We’ve become a nation of cruel, angry, screamers. The national discussion has become nothing less than a national tantrum.

There’s no room for compromise…no room for discussion. There’s no time for sadness at the death of another human being. There’s no place for cooperation…no desire to work towards a common goal or define a common good.

Find someone to blame. Lash out blindly.

This country needs some serious therapy.

 

The Status Quo Hasn’t Changed – April 2011

When the so-called reformers — the Gates’s, the Broads, the Duncans — rail against the status quo they’re referring to nothing that exists today. The real status quo is a killing curriculum based on mindless bubbles on a test. That’s today’s status quo…and that’s no way to educate children.

 

One Size Doesn’t Fit All – March 2009

For the last three days, I have been administering the Indiana state standardized tests or ISTEP+ to students with learning disabilities. These tests are not valid for these students because they do not measure what they claim to measure.

The test maker, McGraw Hill, claims that the test shows what students have learned and provides diagnostic information for remediation.

However, for these students the tests in their disability area are so difficult that they have 1) no hope of passing, 2) little chance of doing well enough to get a score that would provide anything more than a generalized list of their weak areas.

Students with learning disabilities are enrolled in special education because they are not able to perform at “grade level” in their area of disability. The purpose of special education is to provide extra support for the students so that they will be able to learn as much as they are capable of.

Simply put, the standardized tests that we are giving are not appropriate for all students. There is no one-size-fits-all curriculum or test.

 

It’s Time For an Educated Secretary of Education – January 2010

For the last 34 years, I’ve searched for ways to improve my teaching and for ways to reach hard to reach students. The challenge is always there and what we as teachers do affects the lives of children in ways we can’t imagine. It’s frustrating that the people who control what goes on in the public schools of America (in the form of standardized tests, funding, etc) don’t have a clue. Am I self-righteous about my quest to improve my teaching? Yes…of course I am. I have worked hard to learn what I have learned about education and children. To have a basketball player with a degree in Sociology, who NEVER ATTENDED OR WORKED IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL and who is NOT a teacher, lead the nation’s public schools is, dare I say it, irresponsible on the part of the federal government.

 

Follow the Money – March 2010

When you scratch the surface of the current attacks on public education you’ll find big corporations (e.g. Pearson, McGraw-Hill) and wealthy businessmen (e.g. Bill Gates, Eli Broad). There’s money to be made in the new education industry – charters and private schools, vouchers programs, and the re-segregating of the American public school system.

Poverty is still the main issue that WE as teachers have to deal with nationwide.

 

Read Aloud to Your Students Every Day – April 2010

If you don’t read aloud to your students EVERY DAY you’re not doing enough. Every elementary teacher…no matter what grade…should read aloud to his/her students each day. See Jim Trelease’s Web Site and the Read-Aloud Handbook.

 

Due Process: Not Anymore – May 2010

In 2011 the Indiana General Assembly removed due process which gave teachers some job protection.

There’s no doubt that there are inadequate teachers in our schools…and there’s no doubt that teacher’s unions protect their members (which is what unions are supposed to do). However, in Indiana, at least, unions can only guarantee that teachers receive due process. It’s the responsibility of the school leaders, the administrators and school board, to prove just cause that a teacher is incompetent. Believe it or not, teachers unions do not want bad teachers teaching. Tenure in Indiana means that a teacher has to have a hearing in which their inadequacies are proven…they get their day in court to defend themselves against the accusations of those who would fire them. A fair hearing…day in court…confronting the accusers…that’s how we do things in the US.

 

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It’s Those Other Schools

How good are the public schools in your community? If you’re a parent/guardian of a school child, or a teacher in the local schools, chances are you think your schools are pretty good.

If you don’t work in a local school, or don’t have children who attend local schools, how do you judge the quality of your local schools? Should you rely on news media reports? How about state test scores, or state A-F grades?

 

LOCAL SCHOOLS GOOD, NATIONAL SCHOOLS BAD

In the annual PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Towards Public Schools, published last September, seventy-one percent, almost three-fourths of public school children’s parents/guardians, gave their local schools a grade of A or B. Parents of children who attend public schools are among the people who know the schools the best.

Local parents know that their children are more than test scores. They know the teachers, administrators, and staff. Their neighbors work in the cafeteria or on the custodial staff. They appreciate the hard work of school employees.

Why, then, do they ignore the same concepts when it comes to the quality of schools nationally? Only 24% give the nation’s schools a grade of A or B. Those same parents who understand that the news media, or test-based school grades don’t tell the whole story when it comes to their local community’s school, believe the opposite when it comes to schools nationally.

EDUCATORS AGREE

Earlier this month, another survey was published. In this survey it was educators who were asked about the quality of public schools. The results were reported in Education Week’s Educator Political Perceptions: A National Survey.

And, surprise! The educators responses were nearly identical to those of parents and guardians of public school students. American educators gave their local schools, the ones they worked in and knew the best, high grades, but nationally, not so much. Seventy-two percent gave their own school systems an A or B. Only 35% graded the nation’s schools as an A or B.

From Education Week

Across the board, educators give the public schools in their district better grades than those in the nation as a whole. While 25 percent assign A’s to public schools in their districts, just 3 percent allot that grade to schools in the nation as whole. Clinton and Trump voters assign similar grades both to their own schools and the nation’s schools. Compared to teachers and school-based leaders, district leaders are slightly easier graders of both their districts’ schools and schools in the nation as whole. For example, 34 percent of district leaders assign their districts’ schools an A as compared to 24 percent of teachers and school-based leaders.

In other words, the folks who have the closest contact with schools, either as parents or professionals, grade their local schools high, but their opinions about schools nationally are much lower.

Mathematically, of course, this doesn’t make sense. How can the majority of parents and educators “know” that the nation’s schools are poor, when that same majority “knows” that their local schools are excellent? Where are all the “failing” schools if not in local communities nationwide? Where are all the “excellent” schools, if not in other people’s local communities as well as ours?

There is, of course, a logical answer. People hear about all the “failing” public schools across the nation from the news media, pundits, and politicians. At the same time, they experience relief that their own public schools aren’t anything like “those other schools.”

Those people whose children attend public schools and those who work in local public schools know more about how the schools are run. They see the work that goes into them. They are the stakeholders. They realize that schools are not perfect – no human institution is – but they understand that schools are more than the sum of their parts.

• children are more than test scores

• teachers are more than their students’ test scores

• local schools are more than state grades

But, thanks to politicians, pundits, and policy makers, that understanding doesn’t seem to extend to the public schools of the nation, as a whole.

WHO TO BELIEVE

My own local schools, for example, are excellent. I know this is true because my children and grandchildren have attended them…and I have worked in them. I know the teachers, administrators, families, and children. I know that the teachers who work there spend more than just their contracted working hours in order to make the schools responsive to the needs of the children who attend them.

But you might live on the other side of the county (or state, or country)…and you might see that my local schools are not perfect. Sure, this school in the district received a grade of A from the state, and that one got a B, but there’s one on the other side of the district which got an F…and one with a D [and you might also notice that the school grades correspond to the neighborhood economic status!]. There are students who struggle, teachers and administrators who fail in their responsibilities, and administrators who have been out of the classroom too long. You might see my local schools’ A-F grades and conclude that, at least some of them, are failures.

If these were your local schools, what criteria would you use to determine their quality? Would you listen to the parents and teachers who know what goes on in the school? Or would you rely on the test scores and state A-F grades?

How do we really know how the nation’s schools are performing? Are student test scores the most reliable criterion upon which to judge a school?

 

Further Reading:

For a good discussion of the political perceptions in the Education Week Survey, see Curmudgucation’s The Teacher in the Next Room

Are America’s public schools “failing?” – The Myth of America’s Failing Public Schools

The Myth of America’s Failing Public Schools, Part 2

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XQ: Debunked Assertions and False Assumptions

PDK Poll: PARENTS LIKE THEIR LOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Last month, the PDK/Gallup poll of the public’s attitudes towards the public schools was released. The findings were consistent with previous years: Americans support their local public schools.

Public schools get their highest grades from those who know them best: public school parents.

…Americans made clear in last year’s PDK poll that they would rather see a school stay open and improve than start from scratch…

More than 70% of public school parents gave their children’s schools high marks. 84% of Americans don’t want their public schools closed. They would prefer to spend resources improving them instead of closing them.

The largest problem, according to the poll, is lack of funding.

Since 1969, the poll’s first question has been about the biggest problems facing the local public schools. As has been the case since 2002, the most common answers referred to lack of funding, cited by 22% this year. But that’s down from an average of 34% from 2009 to 2014, in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

Americans, it seems, are happy with their public schools. They don’t want them closed and replaced by unregulated charter schools. They don’t need vouchers. They want to keep and improve their local schools.

CORPORATE REFORM STRIKES BACK WITH DEBUNKED ASSERTIONS

You wouldn’t have learned anything about the PDK poll if you watched the corporate propaganda tool TV show, “XQ Super School Live,” on all four networks last week. The focus was on how public schools (all of them, apparently) are not keeping up with the times and “failing”.

Perhaps the media’s constant bashing of public schools, this show as an example, is one of the reasons the PDK poll showed that people think the nation’s schools are failing – even though their own neighborhood schools are graded higher. The fact that parents like their local public schools was ignored on “XQ Super School Live.”

“XQ Super School Live” began with the usual debunked assertions about American public schools. According to them, our high schools are “failing” because they

• don’t graduate as many students as other countries

• are “31st in math”

• are “20th in language skills”

• are “19th in science”

There was no discussion of the fact that American public schools accept everyone and support the largest percentage of students in poverty in the developed world. When sorted by poverty rate American students perform as well or better than most students in the world. The sheer numbers of students living in poverty in the U.S. (the second most in the developed world) accounts for our lower test score average. See The Myth of America’s Failing Public Schools.

Throughout the program, there was no disclaimer which explained that some of the schools highlighted in the show have selective admissions…wihch could mean some lower performing students are excluded. In addition, the schools highlighted are all the recipients of huge ($10 million) grants (XQ Super Schools). What could your neighborhood school do with $10 million?

There was no discussion of schools whose students were poisoned with lead by the mismanagement and neglect of the state, and then left without proper educational resources.

There was no discussion of the many American schools with halls, stairwells, classrooms, and bathrooms that look like this:

The implication of the program was that American schools are old and inadequate…that pedagogy is unchanged since the industrial revolution…that our young people are stuck in a system that hasn’t changed for 100 years. The new, cool, innovativeness of the “Super Schools” was emphasized by the singing and dancing of clean, well-fed, well-clothed, motivated professional actors and entertainers children.

XQ’s FALSE ASSUMPTIONS ARE NOT THE REAL WORLD OF AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOLS

Most public high schools – the ones without the $10 million grant from Steve Jobs widow, Laurene Powell Jobs – are filled with teachers and students who are struggling to do their best, often under difficult conditions. The assumption that there is no innovation or no modernization in today’s high schools is false. The assumption that the “rules” in schools are holding them back (read: nasty teacher union contracts), or that the construct and form of schools are “written in stone,” is false. There are innovative public schools in America and many have one thing in common; adequate (or better) funding and support from the community at large.

Ask yourself, “Where are the struggling schools in America?” Invariably, the answer to that question is “They are in struggling, high-poverty communities.”

American public schools in wealthy areas produce high achieving students who can compete with any other students in the world. Why? Because the schools are well-resourced. The students come to school with their basic needs met; adequate food, health care, and safety. The teachers are supported and their contributions are acknowledged.

I’m sure that the families and students who attend the schools that Laurene Powell Jobs is funding appreciate her contributions. But the vast majority of students in the United States attend schools without a wealthy benefactor. Many of those students go to schools where innovations are occurring, because despite what the stars on XQ Super Schools TV program claimed, schools have changed significantly in the last 100 years. Too many of America’s students, however, are in schools which are underfunded and under-resourced. Instead of providing a few schools with $10 million, we need to fully fund all America’s public schools. For all our children.

• We, as a society, need to commit to funding the lives of all our children. They and their families need health care, food, clothing, shelter, and jobs with a living wage.

• Public schools need teachers who are well-trained and well paid, not college graduates with five weeks of training or subject area professionals who know nothing about child development or pedagogy.

• Public schools should have well staffed and well maintained educational facilities including appropriately staffed and resourced libraries.

• Public schools should offer students classes and opportunities in the arts and physical education.

• Public schools should provide wraparound services – nurses, social workers, counselors – so students who need help can get it. (See The Schools Chicago Students Deserve)

Schools are a reflection of society. As long as we live in a society based on inequity, we will have schools which struggle to succeed in their mission.

OTHER REACTIONS TO XQ Super School Live.

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

The message couldn’t have been more obvious: high school has been standing still for too long. However, that is demonstrably false. The American high school has been a battleground for intellectual and social issues for at least 65 years… let me begin to count the ways high schools have changed, and changed, and sometimes reverted to form…

Seven Times “XQ Super School Live” Denigrated America’s Teachers (And One Time It Praised Them)

…One minute into the broadcast, the message was clear, network television does not support America’s public high schools or its teachers.

…To hear XQ tell it, there are absolutely no innovative classrooms or teachers in any public high schools.

…each “Super School” profiled in the show. All of these schools have one particular non-traditional school policy in common. They all have some element of a selective admissions process…

Why a live, star-studded (Tom Hanks, Common, etc.) TV show on school reform is a problem

The thinking that if “only we can find the right school design model then all kids will have a great education” disregards the fundamental problems that do harm public education: devastating funding inequities that disadvantage the poorest of the country’s schools; curriculum deficits; issues facing teachers, including training, retention, lack of diversity, low pay and lack of authority in their own classrooms; and issues facing students, including poverty, trauma, poor health, unstable family life and learning disabilities.

THE STATUS QUO

I’ll end with a quote from Steven Singer. The status quo for the last four decades has been test and punish. So, when the “XQ Super School” group says we need to rethink high school, Singer agrees!

XQ Live – Desperate School Choice Rebrand After Trump Touched It

Rethink high school?

Sure! Let’s do that! Let’s rethink inequitably funding it. Let’s rethink high stakes standardized testing. Let’s rethink Common Core, stealing local control, teacher autonomy and a host of the kinds of top down bull crap XQ tried obscure while selling an issue of Tiger Beat.

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