The Purpose of Education

Gov. Walker tried to change the mission of the University of Wisconsin

Arthur H. Camins, is the director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. I'm reading his excellent piece embedded in Valerie Strauss' WaPo column today, on the purposes of education, and wondering if it's still legal to even broach the topic. After all, I thought the case was closed. Schooling is all about global competition over reading and math scores and providing workers for the corporations. Isn't it, Sec. Duncan?

Strauss frames the question this way:

What is the purpose of education? The question came into stark relief when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently tried to quietly change the century-old mission of the University of Wisconsin system by proposing to remove words in the state code that command the university to “search for truth” and “improve the human condition” and replacing them with “meet the state’s workforce needs.”

Camins argues instead, that education should prepare young people for life, work and citizenship.

Critical thinking, creativity, interpersonal skills and a sense of social responsibility all influence success in life, work and citizenship.

A science educator, Camins refers to the National Research Council’s Framework for K-12 Science Education which offers some good examples.

The framework describes the practices that scientists and engineers utilize to build new knowledge and designs, but also the student engagement that leads to learning. To be clear, the framework starts from the premise that science is a means to develop explanations about how the natural world works, and engineering is a means to develop solutions to human problems. 

Camins' qualifies his piece by ending with a note about equity.

Application of the systems thinking that characterizes progress in science and engineering to education policy means that real sustainable improvement depends on addressing inequity in areas such as well-paid employment, health care, food, and housing security. You can’t have one without the others.

Well put.

California dist. bans Webster's Dictionary

It's too dirty

After a parent complained about an elementary school student stumbling across "oral sex" in a classroom dictionary, Menifee Union School District officials decided to pull Merriam Webster's 10th edition from all school shelves earlier this week. School officials will review the dictionary to decide if it should be permanently banned because of the "sexually graphic" entry, said district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus. (Press Enterprise)

The problem for the book-banning officials is, they have to be able to read through the dictionary themselves in order to find more sex-related words.

"It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature," Cadmus said. She explained that other dictionary entries defining human anatomy would probably not be cause for alarm.

To help Betti and the other officials build their case against the dictionary, I'm asking readers to comb through their copies of Webster's and send in any words, via the comments section, that might be considered inappropriate for school age children to read. Then I will forward them on to the good people at Meniffee.

Quotables

Minn. math teacher to Obama: "Don't explain..."

As part of her recognition, Barbara Stoflet met with Obama for three minutes, time they took to talk about the importance of math and science for girls, she said. Obama asked her how best to explain math problems to his daughters, and her response was: "Don’t explain it to them. Let them explain it to you." (Politico44)

On the backs of teachers

“A lot of charter schools are doing their work on the backs of teachers willing to work their hearts out,” says the University of Chicago’s Timothy Knowles, whose Urban Education Institute manages a handful of charter schools. “Class sizes are big, numbers of classes taught are often excessive, basic working conditions are poor, salaries are low, and benefits are worse than those in the traditional public system.” (Russo article in Harvard Education Letter)

Rockford teacher diversity

“The Caucasian population in the district is the minority,” [Executive Director of Schools Earl] Hernandez said. “We’re predominately Latin and African-American, yet the makeup of our staff is predominately Caucasian.” The student makeup is about 38 percent white, 30 percent black and 23 percent Hispanic — compared with about 88 percent of the faculty that’s white, according to the Illinois State Board of Education. (RRStar.com)

Obama's $250 million for math/science

Looking back, it seems that whenever we are at war, school funding shifts from humanities to math/science and from small to large schools. This shift has less to do with pedagogy than it does with production.

Scientist shortage?

Scan Bureau of Labor Statistics projections and you won't find words like "crisis" or even "shortfall."

Hey, remember all those reports about scientist shortages? Remember how Bill Gates and others were blaming the schools for not turning out enough scientists and engineers and for hurting us in our competition with China and India?

Well, maybe not:

Numbers from the U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics issued Tuesday showed the unemployment rate for electrical engineers hit a record high, 8.6%, in the second quarter, more than doubling from 4.1% in the first quarter... Meanwhile, emerging nations such as India and China produced nearly 700,000 engineers alone. But the slow growth of U.S.-born STEM workers, analysts say, may have less to do with funding commitments than with cloudy career paths and low wages relative to other specialized careers such as medicine, law and finance. (USA Today)

Unemployment, especially among older Silicon Valley engineers, has been a constant reality for the past 20 years. "But it's certainly gone into 'hyper mode' in the last six," says Alan Weissberger, a 61-year-old telecommunications engineer in Santa Clara, Calif., who admits to being "stumped" when people say there's a shortage of engineers..

Quotables

Teachers are at fault, "we perpetuate poverty..." says Duncan

Interviewed on NPR's Talk of the Nation, Arne Duncan does his usual speed rap. Some good stuff--calls for massive support for early childhood education--sorry Chester Finn. He counter attacks S.C. Gov. Sanford who originally refused stim money for schools--great. But mostly empty cliches: "move outside our comfort zone," education is today's "civil rights issue," "definition of insanity..." He knows 'em all.

Re: merit pay: "In every other sector of our country, we reward excellence."-- Not true, according to Fair Test's Monty Neil. He tells us that performance pay is fairly rare in general and in professions.

Duncan says he wants to pay [only?] math and science teachers more money. He wants to replicate Harlem Children's Zone in 20 communities. OK!

But then he drops a bomb on the teachers who work in the toughest schools and neighborhoods. Regarding schools where children are far behind and "not being successful", Duncan paints with a broad brush:

"We educators quite frankly are at fault. We perpetuate poverty and we perpetuate social failure."

Since Duncan isn't (has never been) a teacher, I wonder who the "WE" is?

College dropout rates

Dennis Littky, founder of the MET School in Providence, tweets:

"4 in 10 low income students graduate from our city high schools,,,you think that is bad? Colleges graduate. 1 in 10! Why no fuss?"

Inching Toward Equity

Gloria Ladson-Billings argues that if Brown v. Board (school desegregation) isn't going to be taken seriously than at least give us "a real Plessy v. Ferguson."

A real Plessy would mean that across this country, Black, Latina/o, American Indian, poor and immigrant students would have the same facilities as their White, middle-income peers. They would have a profession of teachers with the wisdom, qualifications and skills needed to provide high-quality instruction – not a “force” of novice teachers who, although eager, are unprepared and under-prepared to teach. They would have access to the same curricula and courses. They would have the same educational materials—textbooks, technology, science laboratory supplies, and fine arts supplies. And they would have the same funding to provide for their schooling. (Forum for Education & Democracy)

Quotables

Holding Gates accountable

The Lancet, one of the world's leading medical journals, is critical of the way the Gates Foundation invests in global health care:

As the largest private foundation in the world, the Gates Foundation itself defies precedent in its ability to influence global health. The foundation's spending on global health was nearly equal to the World Health Organization's annual budget in 2007. Yet the Gates Foundation is not held accountable, nor is it open about the way it sets priorities and awards grants, according to the Lancet analysis. "What are the foundation's future plans?" asks an editorial. "It's hard to know for sure." (Seattle Times)

Overheard on Arne Duncan's NCLB "listening tour"

"To have a child taking a test that it is literally impossible for them to pass and having that humiliation, and holding schools accountable for that, that doesn't make sense," Duncan said in an interview with the Associated Press. (Education Week)

Ending Bush's "abstinence only" sex-ed funding

Planned Parenthood's Johnny Wilson on Obama's proposed approach to sex education and teenage pregnancies:

“That the Obama administration is looking at this honestly … gives me huge amounts of confidence. I’m really quite impressed. It’s bold. Pissing off the right wing is something we’ve all learned to be afraid of.” (New Mexico Independent)

The hidden curriculum

Students in my Sociology of Ed course are reading Jean Anyon's compelling research on "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of work." Anyon, who chairs the Dept. of Ed at Rutgers, finds that curriculum varies depending on the social class of the students and of their community. She finds, in other words, that classroom work in predominately working-class schools differs from those with mainly middle-class, upper middle-class, or those from executive elite families.

I'm thinking about Anyon's work while reading Terry Savage's piece, "Chicago kids learning to earn"in the business section of Monday's Chicago Sun-Times. It's all about a Chicago school winning the statewide Economics Challenge competition sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank and the Goldman Sachs Foundation. I'm glad a city school has won.

But it should be no surprise that the top finishers were an elite selective-enrollment Chicago school, Northside College Prep and an executive elite suburban school, Adlai Stevenson in upscale Lincolnshire. Economic theory is rarely taught in neighborhood inner-city Chicago high schools and these schools are seldom found in competitions such as this one.

The hidden curriculum is also embedded in the kinds of questions kids are asked during the competition. For example:

What's the most efficient way to solve the problem of pollution?

Correct answer: Tradeable pollution permits. (Among the wrong choices: environmental standards or outright bans.)

Gee, that was easy. To win, all you have to do is spit back this "correct answer." It's a win-win for the students and the corporations and the pollution problem is solved--efficiently.

Duncan watching

Like many of us these days, I spend way too much time and energy in the non-participatory sport of Arne Duncan-watching. Like most progressive educators, I cringe at all the salutes to top-down control, standardization, exaggerated charter claims, and pay-for-performance pandering to the right, all the while wondering if anyone who doesn't have a direct connection to the Gates Foundation will ever have a seat at the table.

But ever the optimist, even in this--to use the words of Frank Rich--Obama's "Katrina moment," and knowing full well the difference between this regime and Bush's, I keep looking for something hopeful and forward thinking coming from Duncan. I didn't hear anything of that sort coming out of his visit Friday, to New Orleans. He called Paul Vallas' disaster-driven, two-tier, union-busted experiment in privatization, a "phenomenal innovation" offering a chilling prospect of things to come in the still hurricane-ravaged city.

On the positive side (I think), were Duncan's pronouncements Saturday about science education.

"You need to make inquiry-based science relevant to kids—stimulate their curiosity—connect it with their lives. Together we need to change the national dialogue about science—to prepare our kids to be honestly critical and technically competent. "Science is all about questioning assumptions, testing theories, and analyzing facts. These are basic skills that prepare kids not just for the lab—but also for life. We’re doing kids a disservice if we don’t teach them how to ask tough and challenging questions."

After 8 dark years of anti-science (remember Rod Paige's push for mandated intelligent-design curriculum?) there may be some hope yet for the new regime, for teachers who believe in the spirit of inquiry, encouraging curiosity and imagination and for students and parents demanding equity in access to science education. We'll all have to wait and see what happens with NCLB re-authorization and whether Duncan's version of science is just another set of testing metrics.