The Problem in Public Education: Standardizing Profits

The past few posts have been somewhat political in nature, and I admit that I have shown some views that would side with liberals.  I'd like to think this post will be different.

In my academic career, the facts to which I have been exposed have opened my eyes to the true faults of our system of education in the public sector.  No, they don't lie with the teacher unions - though the unions do get targeted a lot.  I did once think that the unions had too much power and say over the course of educational development.  But, alas, those are not the true roots of the problem.  It's not the kids; it's not the parents; it's not even the social dilemma of teaching children one thing at school to have them see the opposite on TV and in video games.  It's the way we measure success in schools, and how we come about showing students as numbers to help us quantify the quality of education.  It's the people trying to find a profit in the education of our students.

Gardner's multiple intelligence theory relates the idea that every student has a different way of learning.  Not everyone can learn through lecture, discussion, or reading.  Most elementary schools in the nation have adapted to include Gardner's theory in their classrooms - several have found new ways to teach using his approach to learners.  New developments have been made in determining the true intelligence of the students teachers educate on an everyday basis.  However, as the age of the student progresses, the differentiation of the education lessens.  As students move into high school, we find less and less in the way of diversity in educational deliberation, and more lectures, readings and tests.  Though the early development of specific intelligence does encourage improved scores on tests, very few high schools, colleges and universities apply the theory to their own work.  Many times, the traditional form of educating a mass of students is upheld, and if one does not conform to the method, one does not often succeed.

To take that notion one step further, the way we measure the success of our students has not changed in the 50+ years in which we've been measuring student performance: The standardized test.  Why?  We have surely found that intelligence is much more complex than the ability to memorize and regurgitate facts - when we can agree on what the facts are.  Is testing so valuable and worthwhile that we just need to do it in order
to feel like we can put a value on the amount of learning that has taken place?

I got a glimpse of why we've kept doing the same thing in my graduate studies, and it started with the IQ test.  When we first learned how to put a number on a person's ability so we could adequately compare one to the other, we began doing so across the nation.  From the IQ test came the SAT, the ACT, and then the state standardized tests.  Since then, we've been using the same formula, expecting different results - Einstein's definition of insanity comes to mind.  We test our kids with new questions, but keep the same format - they sit and read and fill in little tiny bubbles, all of which will be graded by some master computer, and the student will have a number assigned to their ability, which will indicate how the teacher teaches, how the school prepares the student for life, how the student responds to education, and whether or not the schools are effectively doing their job.

So, in spite of the new understanding of intelligence, we use the same old methods of measurement.  Why have we not figured out a new way to understand the potential and understanding our students have of the knowledge we teach?  We continue to blame schools for failing to meet standards when the number of low-income families are on the rise - and the educational studies show that students of low-income families perform worse on standardized tests than those in families with adequate to substantial means.  In this age of personal responsibility and independence, should we not be looking more at the students and their parents than the people attempting to educate them?  We like to show the teacher who gets to sit back for three months out of the year and go on vacation and live the cushy lifestyle, when in all reality, the free time teachers possess is taken up by grading papers, creating lessons, researching new ways to educate the students, or filling out paperwork for special needs students who've been included in the general classroom.

Regardless, we've come to the notion in our society that we spend too much on teachers who don't do enough.  We've started embracing the idea of charter schools in districts that fail to show their progress.  No Child Left Behind did a lot to create this idea of failing schools, in that it required EVERY student to be tested, and that EVERY student - regardless of whether or not the student had special needs - meet or exceed state standards.  What that means is the child on the autism spectrum who cannot read well, or the intellectually low-performing student who doesn't understand abstract concepts, must perform at the same level as the student who correctly answers 80% of the questions on the state standardized test.  That mandate meant that over 80% of our public schools would fail to meet the Annual Yearly Progress demanded by the legislation, and that they would all be defunded in favor of charter schools, private school vouchers, or state controlled districts.  Why would such a law be allowed to pass through Congress?

One word - money.  If one looks at the current Common Core Curriculum that passed through Congress, one can see that a few companies stand to make billions in profits.  Most notably, Pearsons - the company that makes textbooks, standardized tests, and intelligence tests for our schools - as well as Scholastic and Houghton Mifflin, who will possibly make hundreds of millions in the first year of the Common Core's roll-out.  When going back through the educational reforms we've seen in the past forty years, we see that privatizing education has become more and more prevalent throughout the country, as 'failing' schools are overtaken by charter schools run by private companies.  The charter schools hire non-union employees with less certification than public schools, and pay them roughly $20,000 less per year on average.  I fail to see how this creates a more conducive environment for learning.

When I delved into how and why these companies got their way, I found it all went back to politics and lobbying.  Our schools weren't failing, but we had a private company fund a study that said they were, and we stuck by the faulty findings.  It first happened when our institution addressed the idea of school funding with the Coleman Report of 1966, which used murky language and problematic comparisons to argue that money did not matter in schools.  Rather, it was the student population and their community that mattered.  However, studies have shown the opposite - schools that can hire more experienced teachers can bridge the gap between low-income and high-income schools.

The next big faulty study came with "A Nation At Risk" that tried to show our public schools were failing, when really they were on the rise.  The study was funded by private corporations looking to get a piece of the $600 billion the country spent on education, and was supported by Reagan who introduced the idea of school vouchers.  But, the math was flawed.  The first test area used 250 students from each level of income to show their start, then used a higher percentage of low-income students as a test group in the next year to show the dropping scores - they tested only 100 students of high income, 200 students of middle and low, and 500 impoverished students to make the 1000 student number they used.  However, the tests they showed had each sector of student performing better than the previous year - but because the concentration of high performers was lower than that of the low-performers, the average was skewed to show public schools decreasing in performance.  This article from Yes! Magazine shows the math failure.  But the companies needed something to show the schools were failing so they could get in on the action, and thus funded a faulty study.

Moreover, we constantly like to point out that public schools are doing worse than other countries.  But we don't take a good look at the reasons why they show better numbers - we just see that we don't perform as well and see it as the need to change things. For instance, in European countries, such as Finland or Poland, we see they score better because a.) they have less students per class on average, b.) only the high-performing students take standardized tests, and c.) they focus less on school work and more on learning real-life tasks.  Asian countries that show better scores than us typically have a.) less students per family, b.) more focused time on educational needs, and c.) significantly less students in their public education system.  Asian schools also record only the top ten percent of their students when showing their numbers for educational comparison.  When we take our top ten percent against the rest of the world, we find that we are in the top five of math, science and reading.

But again, we test every single student, regardless of their disability, income, or ability.  We also educate every student in every subject up through high school.  When we see the bigger picture, we find that our schools are NOT failing us. When we compare public schools to the vaunted charter schools, we see that levels of performance are nearly the same.  Private schools can show higher numbers in some cases, but most of those cases show the private school refusing special needs students because they "do not have adequate facilities" to accommodate the special needs.  When tested, of course the private schools will perform higher because the public schools have to test each capable student - including the ones with special needs.  So, when we look at the numbers, we take the facial image without seeing why the schools are different.  Of course, there are those areas where the public schools do end up out-performing their charter counterpart, only leading to prove the claims wrong.      

Yet, we continue to believe public schools are failing because private companies - with significantly more advertising money than public schools, and greater ability to lobby politicians and the American populace with faulty reports - convince us of such.  They lob attacks against teachers for being overpaid and under-worked - they attack the unions for being corrupt lobbyists trying to take the taxpayer's dollars.  But who are the people gaining the most out of the push for privatization?  Who stands to gain the most out of privatization - the student or the company running the charter school?

We have not always been a country that valued profits and money over doing the right thing - but I am afraid of what the culture of the wealthy is doing to our schools, and how they will affect the way student success is measured.  We know how the wealthy and most of our American society measures success - money.  They determined it would be best to measure the success of schools on standardized testing outcomes - to make each person a single number.  Some schools have rebelled against it - and I fear if more do not, the public school system will truly fail.  Not because it will fail our students, but because we, as a society, will fail the students.  It's time for us to begin measuring school success differently so we can find a way to truly educate our students, instead of giving away our students' futures to people who want to make a buck.      

Benghazi and the Right

I keep hearing about this Benghazi incident when I speak with my friends of the conservative right.  It seems to me like it has become the talking point for those against Obama's foreign affairs.  I find it strange that, despite several stories from news sources, such as NPR, CNN and the BBC, the right feels that there has not been enough coverage of the intelligence failure, or cover-up of the Benghazi incident, despite continued violence there and elsewhere in the Middle East.  

If you don't know what I'm talking about, and blinked your eyes during September 2012, there's a good chance you missed the stories.  So, to summarize, I will relate the story.  Late on the evening of September 11th, 2012 - amid the presidential election - an attack on a US Consulate in Libya occurred, killing four Americans, including the ambassador.  The car bomb strike was, at first, claimed to be part of a riot taking place over a video made by a right wing extremist about the "truth" of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam.  The video made such a mockery of the religious leader, it sparked outrage and violence across the Islamic world. At first, people on the right raced to defend the man's free speech - but then, some other reports began coming out of the White House.  The CIA now informed the president that it was, in fact, an attack by a terrorist or insurgent group specifically targeting the US Consulate.  Hillary Clinton resigned as Secretary of State, Obama said it was a mistake on the side of Intelligence because lots of things were happening at the same time, and several news outlets had to retract stories when the new evidence came out.

Here's the timeline of the actual events, from factcheck.org.  As evidence shows, the White House knew more than they let on.  Awesome.  So, of course, they say things to make it seem okay without apologizing, as every politician does.  As the information came to them, clearly in a controlled stream meant to trickle out so it would seem less of an impact on the presidential race, they began to clarify exactly what took place.

Great, so now we know what happened and now we can start going after the people in Libya who planned and coordinated the attack - right?  No, now we spend two years in a committee talking about what really happened and what the White House knew.  We create several sub-committees, and then a special panel on the attack, all over what's being called an intelligence failure.  Why?  Oh, yeah, politics.

Politics.  It's why we never truly got the whole story from 9/11/01.  Hundreds of witnesses refute the evidence posted by the White House, who was clearly warned of the attack prior to the event.  The White House said the planes incinerated the infrastructure of the Twin Towers buildings - something everyone has heard a hundred times over by now.  But the steel beams showed evidence of melting into molten metal, and steel does not do that until it reaches 1200 degrees F.  Jet fuel reaches a maximum of 990 degrees F.  There must have been people inside the building who planted bombs - whether US citizens or otherwise.  There was no debris from any plane at the Pentagon crash site.  What did the administration claim?  Vaporized.  Really?  A plane was just vaporized into nothing?  With all those cameras around the Pentagon, we only have one video of a plane crashing into the side of the building?  I find that hard to believe - there must have been a cover up.  But where was Fox News and the conservative right during that time?  They were worried about pointing the finger at Osama Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.

And what about those weapons of mass destruction?  What about the 'definitive proof' that Hussein had chemical and nuclear weapons, regardless of the IAEA's countless reports that Hussein was impotent in that area of influence?

John Stewart explained the situation very well in these two clips from his Daily Show      

I just think it's very hypocritical, to mirror Stewart's sentiment, that the right wing would be so outraged over the deaths of four individuals, when they worked so hard to cover up and forgive the mistakes of a previous administration, and the thousands of human lives, both counted and ignored, that were laid at the feet of the people who made those mistakes.  How can they compare Benghazi to 9/11, or Afghanistan, or Iraq?  How can they compare Obama's mistake to the myriad of Bush's?  Oh, yeah, politics... money... people who want power.

Benghazi is a classic case of the person with the plank in their eye trying to point out the splinter in the other person's.  They make themselves look like a fool to people who know the whole story - but that's just it isn't it?  They're counting on people forgetting.  The party of Watergate, the Iran Contra, Desert Storm, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Patriot Act, and the bail out of Wall Street (because remember that Obama did not take power until 2009) rides on the fact that people will forget about all their past mistakes and focus on the here and now - Benghazi, Obama's mistake.  Do democrats make mistakes?  Yes - in fact Gore probably lost the 2000 election because he wanted to distance himself from the legacy of Clinton, who had the Monica Lewinsky catastrophe, Whitewater, and Somalia.  Carter had the Iran hostage situation that ended when he left office.  LBJ had the Gulf of Tonkin.  But no one has had as many mistakes in office that got covered up and forgiven by high ranking officials than George W. Bush.  To call for the same outrage on Obama over Benghazi the way people got outraged at Bush over his misdeeds is ludicrous.

Obama v. Republicans and the Conservative Right

When people at Fox News keep talking about what a poor job Obama has done on the recovery, then praise the Republicans who have held stimulus package after stimulus package back (after the first one succeeded), I wonder - where do they get their numbers?  The conservative right complains more that he violates rights (laws unanimously passed by Republicans - NDAA and USA PATRIOT), uses drones to target enemy combatants (Americans considered terrorists who are considered as such because of a law Republicans passed under the Bush administration legally allowing the president to do so - regardless of party), wants to take away people's guns (he's supported ONE gun regulation bill that was soundly defeated after the NRA went haywire when the nation decided it was time to reconsider gun rights), and is trying to make us look like balls (because pussies are much more durable than balls) across the world by NOT acting unilaterally against Russia, Libya, the people who hit us in Benghazi, Egypt, Syria and Iran.

Meanwhile, Republicans have - at home - attempted to slash funding to education, snap assistance, DCFS, veterans' relief, unemployment, and held the government hostage to eliminate a law that has helped millions of people acquire healthcare at an affordable rate (and even quit jobs they hated because of insurance's new affordability).  They've also seen to efforts to help increase the amount of pull the very wealthy have within our political system via the Citizens' United decision as well as the more recent McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission decision ending the limit on total campaign contributions, while also supporting the end to voters' rights laws without first going through the federal government's Justice Department.

This paints a very serious picture, in my mind.  It shows a continued trend towards the conservative right's alignment to very wealthy individuals while also promoting the trend Republicans have shown to restrict voting through voter ID laws aimed at minorities and poverty to low-income individuals, as well as the rights of individuals.  What is being shown here is the increase in the rights of the wealthy few with a decrease in the rights of the low-income majority now present in the United States.  What does this say?

To me, this says that the more valuable voice in the United States is the one with money to donate to some representative's or senator's campaign.  This means that our elected officials are no longer answerable to the many they represent, but rather the few who donate massive amounts of money to their campaign, promoting the notion that elected officials now play a larger role in the government as fundraisers for the party, rather than representatives of the people's will.

My personal politics have been considered left-leaning or centrist views.  I do not believe in a complete government nanny state any more than I believe in a completely free market.  I like regulations- I like everyone on the playing field to have to follow the same rules.  I don't like the fact that rules have been swayed towards the very wealthy while the poor masses are left to fend for themselves.  What if this were to happen in sports?  What if we said to athletes - "Rules are different if you make X amount of dollars.  You can only play in the play-offs if you make X dollars per game" - or - "We won't call your fouls if you make sure you pay the referees a little more from your pocket so they look the other way when you commit them"?  The people watching and paying those players' salaries through tickets, jerseys, and memorabilia would be in an uproar.  So why don't we get enraged when one political party does that for people making millions or more per year?

You may ask - well, how have they changed the playing field?  Besides the voting rights act, the Citizens'United decision, and the McCutcheon decision, how has the conservative right made it harder for the average American to get ahead?  Well, outside of fighting for tax breaks on wealthy individuals and profitable corporations during a time of severe recession, while arguing for tax hikes on the middle class and low-income people, they have continually blocked stimulus packages proposed by Obama to aid the working class by creating jobs, continuing unemployment benefits and supporting the poor and wealthy alike by allowing those who have little to spare to afford necessities - like food.  Yet, while Republicans do this in the legislative branch of the federal government, they blame the executive branch for not doing more to ensure that jobs continue their growth.  In essence, Republicans and the conservative right have created an unfair scenario, and have blamed Democrats for allowing them to do so.

However, even while this struggle has been going on, the economy has risen.  How?  Why?  Well, in my opinion, as people continue to see manufacturing and labor jobs decrease due to job exporting and robotic development, they have begun to go into business for themselves.  Thanks to SNAP assistance - which Republicans lash out against - and federal and state programs giving funds to unemployed people - which Republicans claim make people lazy - we have seen a growth in self-employed individuals finding ways to make money with their own talents.  Whether making money through pyramid schemes - like independent power companies, Pampered Chef-esque companies, Am-Way-esque companies, Mary Kay-esque companies - or by making money through talent - like self-publication, artistic endeavors, or service related fields - the average American is making it work on the little they have.  With more people embracing the notion of multi-generational homes, costs of living have in turn gone down, while new home purchasing has dropped.

So, despite the political problems Obama has with Republicans, the American people continue on.  What does this mean, and how are politics responsible for any of it?  Well, while Republicans and the conservative right have blasted Obama for a slow recovery, in spite of blocking all attempts at a speedy one, and Obama has blasted Republicans for blocking attempts to ensure the progress of American jobs, enough legislation has gone through to allow people a floor from which they can start building.  In essence, the American people have become tired of the arguments, and have started taking it upon themselves to recover.  Does this benefit the Republican idea of personal responsibility, or the Democratic notion that we are all part of the same American mosaic?  I think it has shown us both - that we are all part of the same tapestry, and that only by doing for ourselves can we really start doing for others.  It has emboldened the American people to not only stop relying on the federal government for hand-outs, but has also allowed us to create a more stable economy from which we can begin building the new century.  It has shown us that the previous century's tactics will not work, and that we need to create a new, more stable infrastructure from which to begin.

In general, had it not been for Obama's measures that DID in fact pass, our country would not be where we are today. Conservatives want to downplay it, or remove the proverbial rug from underneath us, so they can achieve electoral victories and stick it to the centrist/left-leaning group arguing for more government support in the middle class and less corporate welfare.  If it were not for Obama's positions on student loan debt, educational funding, SNAP assistance, unemployment benefits, healthcare coverage or job creation, most of our social advances would not be taking place.  However, the conservatives continue to lash out against Obama for not doing enough, while hand-cuffing him when he tries to do more.

I will not say ALL conservatives have been against Obama, but the loudest speaking conservatives have argued against him despite the numbers saying he has done a pretty decent job.  Even though he has fought hard against a party trying, in any way they can, to unseat him from office, or corrupt his two-term presidency with made-up scandals or conservative-policy-created problems, he has helped us recover in a way no one expected.

In this way, the art of this struggle lies in the little guy, who in spite of the people trying to remove his boots, found the boot straps by which to pick himself up, and used the government's support to do so.  Whether by using disability, unemployment, the ACA, SNAP assistance, or student loans to aid educational development, the people of the United States have grown and become more independent in the terms Obama has been in office than in Reagan's, regardless of Obama's tax policies - which have been lower than Reagan's trickle down policy.  Obama has been quite centrist in his dealings, even though he has supported gay rights, women's rights, and equal rights in the face of republican opposition.

While I am not saying it's all because of Obama, I am saying that Obama's had a pretty good run of things even though he's been opposed since 2010.  Does that mean he's been our best president ever?  Far from it.  I would actually say the arguments have done more to disinterest people in politics than interest them.  More and more people want solutions, not excuses.  Until our government can start cooperating, we will not have solutions outside of the ones we make locally and on our own.  But, Obama has given us the means to which we CAN make those decisions, and the optimism to think we can go beyond our humble beginnings to reach heights we didn't expect.

I'm not calling Obama a miracle worker, or the answer to all of our problems.  I'm just saying, as a figurehead of a country run by the corporate elite, he gives the little guy hope that he can be something more than he is.