Education Reform

The Bush administration tried making education their domestic poster-boy cause as the Obama administration is making healthcare reform their current domestic worthy-cause. Ironic, given the Bush pronounced the word "nuclear" the same way as Homer Simpson. But it's about as fair to pick on Bush's intellect as it is to pick on a snake for losing a thumb wrestling competition, so I'll get back on track with my original topic now.

School reform made a small ripple in the news-o-sphere with the release of a study from the Annenberg Institute and NYCLU recommending making schools less of a prison state in order to increase success of students in academia.

It's kind of important to note that this was done in schools of "at-risk" students.

Their recommendations:

• Discourage the installation of metal detectors. Schools can create safe and successful learning environments without relying on metal detectors.

I honestly don't have experience with this. Our school districts don't spend money on this, and personally I never thought it was needed. But I'm not familiar with city schools, especially at-risk schools. I suppose as a deterrent it's a good thing, as a practical thing I don't know how effective it is. Guess it just means the kids wait until after school to shoot each other, and meanwhile a belt buckle is holding up the line of kids trying to get to class on time. If you absolutely have to get rid of that sucka' that be dissin' you girl, time ta' get creative in shop class with the band saw...

The statement is true though. You never hear about schools in clothing-optional communities having problems with kids smuggling contraband drugs and weapons into the buildings, so I guess they can have safe environments without metal detectors.

• Restore discipline responsibilities to educators. Minor disciplinary infractions must be handled exclusively by school officials, not police personnel.

That would be nice. In theory. In practice today, administration is beholden to the public, simply because it's a headache to deal with little Johnny's parents. Seems as if in more cases than no little Johnny is always the angel that couldn't possibly have stolen Sally's iPod and the parents have no idea how it ended up in Johnny's backpack, but I'm sure they'll find out in a lawsuit to the school because this suspension means Johnny can't play in the football game.

Okay, I'm overgeneralizing.

My point is that discipline is a...well, discipline in and of itself, and educators having to police the kids while walking a political line to keep parents happy is never a good mix. It seems that once parents start pulling the litigation or harassment card then it's simply not worth the hassle of giving Johnny a life lesson in character weighed against the time that would be invested in educating the parents that life just isn't always fair and that yes, their son can be a pain in the arse, contrary to what they seem to believe.

I suppose that it does end up teaching Johnny a lesson. Life not giving you your way? Mommy and Daddy can make it fair for you. I think that's where No Child Left Behind's brainchild had his life lessons learned, come to think of it...

• Assign fewer School Safety Agents to patrol schools. The number of police personnel patrolling the city’s schools should be reduced significantly, creating financial savings and strengthening the educational mission of the schools.

Again we don't have much experience in our area. Growing up, we didn't have them in our schools. I think that our local district did have a police officer or two after I had graduated; the school officials liked outsourcing discipline since it meant that the parents with objections had to take it up with a judge and not infringe on the administrator's time with objections.

I'm not sure what the recommendation means by implying there's a connection between fewer police officers patrolling schools will lead to a greater education mission in schools; perhaps the article linked to simply waters down the bullet points into sound bites and as a result it lost its meaning.

• Mandate alternatives to harsh discipline. Restorative justice practices, a conflict resolution method used at several schools profiled in the report, should be implemented in all city schools.

This could be interesting, given that I have no idea what the alternatives are they're proposing. A student court? We can't even get actual tax-paying citizens to report for jury duty; do we really want kids who won't pay attention in class to be in charge of some kind of pseudo-justice system?

My daughter is in student council. She did...well, nothing, to my knowledge. But it looks good on her college application. In that regard it seems as if student government is a lot like actual government. Even when I was in school I couldn't figure out what student government was supposed to do...they didn't have more than a pittance budget and were supposed to...well, I don't know, sponsor dances, maybe? They sure as hell didn't do anything with rules or learning incentives. We had a representative that was supposed to go to school board meetings, but it wasn't like they had a vote or could do anything other than talk to board members who would politely ignore them because I suppose the student didn't pay attention in civics classes in the first place.

For students with an IQ above a toaster oven most of the "student conflict resolution" prepackaged programs probably won't hold much meaning. It's telling that people who are supposed to be in the real world apparently can't just tell kids how to handle situations and instead are told they must rely on pretty posters and handbooks that tell them how to deal with conflicts...apparently educated adults who are considered functional members of society can't share their common-sense strategies on how to deal with the jerk that doesn't know how to properly trade lunch tray items or get their fat arse off the swingset and share.

• Ensure students’ input into school rules. Giving students a sense of ownership over the school rules makes them more willing to obey codes of conduct.

This could be a nice laugh-riot. First we get a report that essentially points out that kids are brain-damaged, developmentally, until they're into their twenties, then there's this recommendation that urge turning more control over to these brain-damaged kids.

Do these people ever sit down and talk to these kids, get their ideas, before actually proposing these things? It sounds reasonable. Sounds very reasonable. In practice...um...I'll just say I'm skeptical and leave it at that.

Would it be out of left field to draw a similar parallel to prisons would having happier prisoners if they had a vote in how their punishments and disciplining was carried out? Or patients in asylums? These are extremes, but when it comes down to it, the people in prisons and schools don't have much say in whether they're there, what is done to them there, and they're working in a system which encourages conformity to reduce discipline issues. Usually for a reason.

• Institute transparency and accountability in school safety practices. The DOE must disclose raw data to allow New Yorkers to determine the effectiveness of school safety practices. Moreover, School Safety Agents should be subject to the same oversight as police officers.

...because the public is SOOO much more effective at dealing with issues they have no experience in. State and federal legislators have shown this time and time again with all the bureaucracy they've helped introduce into various sectors of society, from education to transportation to taxes and healthcare.

I love hearing people who have spent no time on the other side of the classroom...any role aside from their childhood brain-formative years sitting at a desk...dictating how to fix education. They have no idea what teachers have to put up with and how teachers spend more time dealing with bureaucracy and policies and politics instead of just teaching.

Although I'll also point out that teachers are members of the public too. They seem equally mystified much of the time at matters of intellect and education; there's nothing that seems to prevent sub-intellectual or low-achieving teachers from taking up positions in schools; I've heard stories of teachers that promote the idea that the moon landing were faked being in charge of teaching students and worse. It's just part of the human condition. On the other hand, why would good teachers with solid skills want to work for crap pay to put up with the hassles that are attached to teaching if what they really want to do is teach?

• Provide support services for students’ non-academic needs. Partnering with local hospitals and community based organizations to provide students health care and social services addresses non-academic challenges before they develop into behavioral problems.

This one sounds like advocating that schools become a nanny day-care than focusing schools on being schools. Parents already expect schools to act as substitute parents (unless it clashes with whatever subset of obligations they decide they actually want to take care of; "You want to teach my kid about SEX?? NEVER!") Now we want schools to give added services for kids that are lonely, pregnant, gangbangers, mentally ill, bored, overweight, underweight, depressed...

Was there a time when kids went to school to learn instead of form their own miniature nanny state?

Maybe I'm being too harsh or cynical. At this point it seems that we've had decades of "failing education" so...going by track record...there's not much hope that things will change anytime soon.

I've said before that just criticizing without offering alternatives is rather wasteful. I think I do have ideas. Practical? Probably not. But they're something, and the ideas distilled into something that would fit here would probably render them rather trite