Public education is the square peg in the round hole.
America is the land of opportunity: if you work hard, you will earn success. Anything is possible. The Dream, despite all the commentary over the years in which it is exposed as utter fallacy, is still the premise on which America operates.
Our economy requires competition in order to function. We compete for jobs; companies compete for our money. This is all great if you only pay attention to the one who gets the job or the company who cashes in. When I teach Orwell's Animal Farm, I do a quick (way too quick) primer about communism, socialism and capitalism, so that students will have a better sense of the political and economic context in which the allegory is set. Of course, the students realize that capitalism is the most palatable to them, but every year they are shocked when I twist the discussion this way: because I have this job, someone else does not have this job. Because I spend my money one place, someplace else doesn't get money. They start to realize that inherent in capitalism is the competition which naturally segregates the haves and have-nots.
To me, this is the essence of why everyone hates teachers right now.
No, I'm not talking about Wisconsin, collective bargaining, and paying for my health insurance. That's another post–and ought to be from someone more intelligent than I am.
The public hates teachers right now because we've given them exactly what they wanted: a model of education wherein our inherent and all-American competitive nature–of which we are so proud in other contexts–has manifested itself beautifully and stratified the ranks within schools. If you look at our schools, there is an upper class, a dwindling middle class, and a ballooning class of the intellectually impoverished. The competition which causes this is not so obvious as the economic competition of the free market or the job market. And the competition in schools is not about getting into Harvard. Public schools have become a mirror of our ultra-stratified society. Schools are us. There is the top tier in schools just as there are the richest of the rich in our society. In both cases, greater opportunity comes with that privileged status in the hierarchy. There is the swelling lowest ranks: in the economic sense it is the increasing lower class; in the academic sense it is the swelling numbers of students who struggle and fail. Each layer of stratification perpetuates itself.
Unfortunately, the reality of what America is and the image Americans have of themselves do not align. We want schools to perpetuate the Dream that all Americans are exceptional (right, Mrs. Palin?) but we fail to recognize that exceptional can only be determined against a great average. We want schools to make all succeed, but we also demand competition, which inherently produces winners and losers. And as the public rhetoric clearly states, we are not going to tolerate schools full of losers, even if that is the only possible outcome for the competition we place schools in (Race to the Top, anyone?) If schools fail to "perform" in this competition, we sanction with penalties in the guise of "reforms," as Tom describes in his last post.
Maybe the Dream of a free public education is a dream which has outlived its purpose in our competitive society. We want schools to be competitive, but unless we are willing to admit that in order to produce "winners" the opposite by-product will have to also emerge, schools will always be failures because they will house students who were on the losing end of the academic competition. Until the public and policymakers can stomach that what they are asking of public schools requires some students to lose, we will not see real reform. American public schools should not be criticized for being failures–in fact, the policy and funding decisions made over decades have helped create a hierarchal system that by nature emerges in a capitalist, competition-oriented system. We're reaping exactly what we've sown.
The business model for education is often touted as the solution (performance pay, outcomes, the sameness movement of standardization, and on and on), but it conveniently ignores the whole analogy: in the business model, competition is inherent…some will win and some will lose. In the analogy of schools and businesses, what about the businesses that fail because the system of competition has to have its loser? What will the analog be in the public school system when we adopt Bill Gates et al.'s model of education?
When we put emphasis on "competition," we need to remember that doesn't just mean we're producing winners, it means that we're also creating losers.
It made total sense to me, Mark. We can’t win if we don’t beat anyone, right?
I’ve always believed that competition is great, as long as everyone involved does so voluntarily. (which is why I don’t consider hunting a sport) We have the occasional spelling baseball game in my room, but I don’t make anyone play. They’re free to study their words in another manner.
When schools compete, whether it’s against one another or against charter schools, there will be a loser. And, like Pezz said, we then have to take care of that loser. But did the people in that school voluntarily choose to compete? Probably not. With RTT, states competed. Most states lost. Unfortunately, however, the winners essentially received the tax money from the losers. The students in those state, without even knowing it, lost.
I’m glad my rambling made some sort of sense, not that it in anyway can sum up all the complexities of these issues.
I also find it ironic that the national standards movement, NCLB, and all that aims for such sameness, when the other prized quality of America is our staunch individuality. And they wonder why it’s not working.
You’ve got a good theory here to explain what I call the denial of the bell curve. NCLB wanted to grab the left tail of the curve and drag it to the right, until it was not a curve but a spike sitting on 100% proficiency in writing and math. The impossibility of this was ignored from the beginning, until now Arne Duncan predicts that 82% of our schools may be labeled a failing by next year.
You are right: capitalism is based on competition, and wealth and poverty are its consequences. And poverty stratifies our schools.
You must have heard my class today!
We were discussing Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and I asked the question: If the economic system at play in society guarantees winners and losers, does society have an obligation to take care of the losers in the system?
It was a fantastic debate.
I think your post illustrates the great paradox of modern education: competition is expected, but there can be no losers.