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another Niki Hayes alert:
Come January, when the election frenzy is over and it's time to fix (again) our endlessly collapsing U.S. public education system, I can already see who'll be sitting around that West Wing conference table helping you craft your policies (aka, calculate the flow of dollars): the usual passel of political appointees, lifer administrators, think-tank policy wonks bearing white papers funded by the Gates Foundation, rock-and-rolly inner-city charter school innovators and the "social entrepreneurs." No actual public school parents like myself will have the remotest input.
Want Schools to Work? Meet the ParentsBy Sandra Tsing LohSunday, September 14, 2008; Page B03
No actual public school parents will have the remotest input except when our districts spend tens of thousands of dollars staging "Community Conversations" with a view to co-opting, reframing, or otherwise squashing the views of dissident parents.
exemplar:
My own district's Community Conversation seems to have transformed a widespread parent interest in "Singapore Math" into an item entitled "Global Awareness," which if all goes well will be inserted in the "Character education" portion of the revised Strategic Plan.
Now that's input.
bonus points:
Eduwonk admonishes suburban parents.
13 comments:
Were you in on each group discusssion? It certainly was not discussed in my group. My group was made up of non - Irvington teachers and parents of IHS graduates. Actually most of the comments concerned critical thinking, immersion in World Language programs and technology. The students discussed the pressure of being a HS student and the need to take Honors and AP classes to get into college. I spoke to parents in different groups and no one said their comments were censored.
"No actual public school parents like myself will have the remotest input."
Interesting stuff, Sandra.
Maybe one day we can chat about the vitriol and ever-present charges of ignorance/irrelevance thrown toward people like me. You know, the ones who have a strong interest in and commitment to public education, but happen not to be married or with any children.
It gets worse. One paragraph later she says:
Never mind Washington. Even in our own hometowns, when it comes to the public school debate -- which is, as it is everywhere, tedious, grinding and forever -- we parents take our place behind the mayors, the unions and our (largely male, largely professional-pundit, largely not actually in the schools every day) op-ed writers.
She doesn't like male op-ed writers? Well, maybe she's friends with Sara Mead, who knows? I tried to like her op-ed, but I'm afraid it paints too rosy a picture of "parent land". Don't know about your experiences, but the world of parents isn't exactly free of galloping me-too-isms.
We had an open house last night and the communication was in one direction. Parents could ask questions that would clarify what the school was doing, but they could not ask questions about their decisions.
One such question was about their inconsistency in posting homework on SchoolNotes.com. The parent was trying to get them to see that it doesn't do much good unless we (parents) can rely on the information. Their answer was that it's really the responsibility of the student to write the information in their planner. The real answer is that the administration does not want to force this extra responsibility on the teachers. Some teachers said that parents can always reach them by email, but the other teachers in the room were very quiet. The result? parents can't rely on SchoolNotes or email. They have no way to prevent problems before they occur.
When we got a chance to meet the teachers in their rooms, they might (at best) have a one page handout about what material they are covering. Language Arts and Reading had no information and no books to look at. What do teachers think? Do they think that parents don't care about what and how their kids are taught? Last year I got a surprised (and not friendly) reaction when I started to press a teacher for details.
Our school does have a committee of parents and teachers who talk about school improvement. They might talk about grading and honor roll issues, but never about curriculum or basic assumptions. At our open house, this group just talked about how they want everyone, including parents, to take the 3R pledge: respect yourself, respect others, and respect the environment. How can a child or parent respectfully decline the offer. Please sign our pledge that says you will not beat your wife.
Unlike Sandra Tsing Loh, I'm not looking to be a commando PTA dad on a take-over mission. I'm looking for more input on assumptions and curriculum, or my money back to go elsewhere.
Sandra Tsing Loh’s heart is in the right place. She had the scales fall from eyes when she encountered the morass that is the LAUSD.
Unfortunately, she had jumped directly to all the wrong conclusions. It’s all the state’s fault that it is not providing enough money to schools, if we just get all the parents to fund-raise for more stuff at the school, etc.
So while I have a great deal of sympathy for her predicament, her prescriptions will do little or nothing to change the basic problems.
The small key to the problem is right in front of her:
The District's Division of Professional Learning and Leadership has been charged with the development of a plan for Quality Customer Service which will include professional development for all stakeholders.,
How much money is being spent on the “Division of Professional Learning and Leadership?”
For the parties that make the up the iron triangle public education, none of their incentives align with those who are paying for the product (taxpayers) and those who consume it (parents & children)
I spoke to parents in different groups and no one said their comments were censored.
I spoke to parents whose comments were translated into the polar opposite of what they said.
Censorship isn't the issue. Shared decision making is the issue. State education regulations require shared decision making, and we do not have it.
I have to say....I didn't read the entire column.
At our open house, this group just talked about how they want everyone, including parents, to take the 3R pledge: respect yourself, respect others, and respect the environment. How can a child or parent respectfully decline the offer. Please sign our pledge that says you will not beat your wife.
oh my god --- Ardsley, a neighboring town, is now asking parents to .... I believe they are to sign a poster listing character values. Then they are to hang the poster over their dining room tables.
I think I still have the article....I'll have to look.
The one saving grace there is that it's obvious the new superintendent isn't on board for the parents-signing-posters initiative.
Meanwhile, our district is proposing to add "environmental stewardship" and "global awareness" to the character education strand of the revised strategic plan. The superintendent told one of the local papers that she would be sending a letter to parents telling us how we can support the school's commitment to environmental stewardship.
This is taking place in the context of local residents suing the district for dumping toxic chemicals onto their property (have forgotten the exact details - it's a mess).
respect yourself, respect others, and respect the environment
I wouldn't sign.
"Respecting the environment" can be an extremely problematic category. We've been having fishkills in our little local pond, apparently because of pro-environment policies against using chemicals and the like. A town employee filled me in on the details during a massive cleanup after one of the kills.
I'm an "animal person"; I write about animals and think about animals. It's extremely upsetting to me to walk to the pond and find hundreds of dead fish.
If it's a choice between "environmental stewardship" and "fish stewardship," I'm going to choose fish.
Continuing off topic....I talked to our veterinarian who told me how one treats a pond in order to keep the fish alive and follow EPA regulations etc...will get an email off to the town folks at some point.
Apparently copper sulfate is the answer. (I think I'm remembering that correctly.)
most of the comments concerned critical thinking, immersion in World Language programs and technology. The students discussed the pressure of being a HS student and the need to take Honors and AP classes to get into college.
No school district needs to spend 30K to hold a conversation on these topics.
I wasn't sure about what they meant by respect the environment, so I had to look online. It appears that this really means respecting the school environment. Keep it clean. But I don't know what it means at our school. Some other schools add "respect learning" and respect property". The kids make prints of their hands on paper and sign the pledge. They hang these up all over the school.
What does this process teach the kids who don't think they need no stinking pledge? They already had to sign a document saying that they will follow the rules in the student handbook.
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