Debunking PISA

I have been disappointed with America's response to reforming our education system. The things we need to do have been lost in irrelevant arguments about the problems. It seems as if the talking points for reform are the same as those of people who wish to destroy our public education system and replace it with a system of private schools fueled by vouchers.  Now, I am not opposed to vouchers.  I think it could be a better system of financing our schools than our current system.  I believe that vouchers could unleash educational entrepreneurs and give parents more control over their children's education.  Vouchers will only work after we have leveled the playing field for all American children.

The problem with vouchers and current reform is that corporate greed is at the heart of the movement.  I believe that vouchers are the dream of corporations getting their hands on all the federal and state money expended on education.  Anytime the feds spend money, corporations line up with their hands out like beggars because they know the federal government is easy to fool and they want that money.

We are all being fooled into believing that America's education system is failing everyone by the movement that wants to take over public education in order to enrich their shareholders and CEOs.  Unfortunately, much of the charter movement has been co-opted by this movement already.  Who benefits by nationwide standardized testing?  Who benefits by controlled standardized curriculums?  Not the small school district in the middle of Kansas who have particular needs and the know how to solve their problems!

Why do we believe that all of our schools are failing?  After years of research and anti poverty advocates like Ruby Payne and Jonathon Kozol, we still miss the point that what is failing are schools that serve a high percentage of children living in poverty, not all schools.  Vouchers, charters and high expectations will not solve this problem.

Stephen Krashen's article The Tiger Mom, and Inaccurate Reporting in the blog Schools Matter addresses this problem by pointing out the inaccurate reporting about education in Time Magazine's article Tiger Mom: Is Tougher Parenting Really the Answer written by Amy Chua .  Time Magazine reports that the indication our schools are failing can be found in America's scores on the PISA, an international test that places American children in the middle of other countries' overall scores on this standardized test.  He points out that when adjusted for poverty levels, our children from middle class homes score at the top and those children who live in poverty are at the bottom of the test results.

The article It's The Poverty Stupid! published by the National Association of Secondary School Prinicpals points out the following statistics about the PISA and  poverty.

 Of all the nations participating in the PISA assessment, the U.S. has, by far, the largest number of students living in poverty--21.7%. The next closest nations in terms of poverty levels are the United Kingdom and New Zealand have poverty rates that are 75% of ours.

·      U.S. students in schools with 10% or less poverty are number one country in the world.

·      U.S. students in schools with 10-24.9% poverty are third behind Korea, and Finland.

·      U.S. students in schools with 25-50% poverty are tenth in the world.

·      U.S. students in schools with greater than 50% poverty are near the bottom.

·      There were other surprises. Germany with less than half our poverty, scored below the U.S. as did France with less than a third our poverty and Sweden with a low 3.6% poverty rate.

America is number one at raising children who live in poverty!  Our response after years of failed programs to eradicate poverty is to simply say that poverty is not an excuse for poor academic perfomance.  That may be true, but the effects of poverty upon our children is signigicant.  All of the indicators of poor brain development are enhanced by living in poverty.  As Stephen Krashen so aptly writes:

Poverty means poor nutrition, substandard health care, environmental toxins, and little access to books; all of these factors have a strong negative impact on school success. The problem is poverty, not the quality of our schools.

Eric Medina in his work as a molecular biologist reports that Healthy brains require good nutrition, sleep, and little stress.   Many children from impoverished neighborhoods and homes do not come to school ready to learn because of their environment.  I find it difficult to understand why American's are so reluctant to attack the underlying cause of our problems and search for new solutions yet so willing  to embrace repackaged 19th century methods of education.  It is probably because that 19th century method of education has caused our thinking to remain static while technology and innovation march into the future.  That is what those who propose to destroy America's public education system want, a simple answer to a complex problem.  As long as poverty is not even on the table as a point of discussion in educational reform, we will continue to have many children who can not succeed in our schools.

College Ready

I have begun a change in life related to my career in education.  Upon retirement I felt like many and could not really stop working.  I concerned myself with education issues and worked as a substitute, did some post retirement work as a school librarian, attended conferences on the brain and learning, spent some time working for PBS Teacherline, taught an online University course, did some contracting at a charter school and started this blog.  I developed a belief that kindness and cooperation are the missing ingredients in education.  I read Nel Noddings' Happiness and Education and concluded that she is right, we have worried too much about the technical side of education and not enough about the social emotional growth of the young people in our country and the goal of education should be to learn how to be happy.

As I have been going through my various stages of retirement education reform has been proceeding full blast.  Predicated upon the perception that our children are not prepared for the future and worries that other countries beat our scores on standardized tests it seems as though my generation of educators have utterly failed.  This has been a constant moan since I began teaching.  The public schools are failing our children seems to be a consensus that has been building for a certain portion of the U.S. population.  They want to replace our community based local control of education with school choice.  Schools whose only responsibility are the students they are teaching.  This seems to me a narrow view of education and seems to undermine the value of learning cooperation, diversity and common societal values.  It feels to me that the basic premise of this movement is if you don't like it, go somewhere else.  I always thought the American spirit had something to do with working through problems by finding common ground.  My ideas of kindness, happiness and cooperation don't seem to be the thinking of the educational establishment nor society in general.

So, I have decided to become a participant in education as opposed to being a proponent for any particular pedagogy.  I hope to experience the same college education our recent graduates are getting.  Of course I can not afford to go to Harvard, but I did obtain a scholarship for Vietnam Veterans sponsored by the state of New Mexico and I have enrolled at the University of New Mexico  as an English major studying creative writing.  I am starting over and trying to develop a second career as a writer, an idea that began with this blog and blossomed when I self published Bombs Away Buckaroos.  These projects have made me realize I never had training as a creative writer and have much to learn.  So, I have a goal but along the way hope to share my observations of the capabilities of my classmates and the quality of my education.

It has been an interesting two weeks but my overall impression is positive.  If we failed these students, then we failed my generation.  The students who go to the classes I do are interested, mostly do their work, seem to be future oriented and introspective.  They are certainly young adults who have the same problems all young adults have had with the meanings and problems of life in our culture.  My creative writing class is full of young minds who understand what they are asked to do and seem capable of doing it.  My first impressions of their writing is that they are no better or no worse that the students I attended with in 1965.

We will see.  I hope to report my impressions and share some of the work I am assigned as I progress through the beginning of the final third of my life or hopefully the 3rd quarter.  It sort of depends on having a healthy body and engaged mind!