The Broken-Down Car: American Education

Pre-Blog Rant:

Working in policy before becoming a full-time teacher, I never fully understood the root of the anger that many teachers carried into policy conversations. Then I became a teacher and realized I have to constantly read things like Khan finishing a great comparison on page 3 (or 63) with, “As with our eating habits, so with our teaching habits.”

Policy-makers, -writers, -thinkers, etc place an abhorrent amount of both passive and active blame on teachers. But here’s the thing, IT’S NOT TEACHERS MAKING THESE DECISIONS!! Our teaching habits are not the problem. I do not know a single teacher who thinks high-stakes testing or mandated online curricula are good for our students. I do not know a single teacher who would advocate for the schedule that students experience. We are not asked to design, we are told to execute. Teachers are drivers who are actively soldering and taping pieces of a car together as it races down the road, listening to the engineers of this monstrosity look on and say, “Wow, they’re really ruining that car. We should take away creative control of driving decisions.” 

The Force of Inertia: 

In this week’s reading, Khan argues that the American education system is built upon a self-sustaining foundation of training young people to be obedient, regimented and function as chattel for American capitalism. Rather than the more lofty philosophies of an educated and engaged American populace sustaining our democracy and paving the way for a brighter future, our schools are built on constant interruptions, rigid work requirements, and tracking student “growth” as if mental acuity could be measured with a number. In 120 years, this system has remained largely unchanged due to the fact that we have built our society around the structure it provides. 

I was on a committee several years ago and had the opportunity to hear Paul Reville explain the educational inertia that Khan describes by saying the term “education system” is part of the problem. Reville noted that we do not have one system. Rather, public education is used for three distinct systems: 

1. Education System: teaching children things. 

2. Childcare System: providing free childcare and child-rearing services for parents

3. Employment System: giving jobs to a large number of teachers, administrators, custodians, social workers, and a truly staggering number of highly-paid people working in the central administration of urban public schools who neither live nor send their children to school in that district. 

Reville noted that of these three purposes, the only one that’s actually working is the employment system. Any parent would tell you that childcare ending at 2:30pm does not fit most job schedules, and any teacher would tell you that they cannot come close to replacing the child-rearing services that parents provide. Regarding education, Khan notes that the Prussian model of regimentation and order above initiative does not produce the best education results. Even considering the severe limitations of testing, the numbers present a clear picture that our educational system is not meeting its own desired metrics. And yet, this system limps on. It sustains itself not because we have nothing better, but rather because the repercussions of unsuccessful or even awkward change are too politically volatile for anyone to embrace. 

Khan’s example of the New York school testing overhaul encapsulates that political problem and what happens if the truth that change reveals (scores are artificially high) is something people don’t like (you blame the change). However, I was frustrated with how Khan described the political conversation around this issue, because while I agree that inertia is a problem, I also think that there are strong, political forces that are actively working to support this system. Khan rather flippantly separated politics into the “left” and “right” and then said that conservatives want more choice and liberals do not like corporations. The political reality is so much more complicated, which I think is exemplified by the example of Charter School Networks. 

Charter School Networks, the Perfection of the Prussian Model: 

In my opinion, charter school networks have been the most important educational force in the past several decades. Charter schools began in the 1990s, and the expansion of these types of schools was presented as an effort in educational reform, change or improvement. However, Charter School Networks are school franchises (think Lowes, Home Depot, or Hobby Lobby) and have spearheaded the rapid proliferation of charter schools across urban districts by banking their credibility on the value system of a traditional Prussian model of education.

Khan says that conventional schools place a great emphasis on test results (page 16 or 93), but this has really been exacerbated by direct educational competition. Charter School Networks expand in cities by touting their testing prowess, comparing the test results of their scholars with existing public schools to show that they are better. They also enjoy touting discipline statistics, demonstrating that their schools are safe and orderly places. As public schools (just do not look carefully at parental requirements or Special Education populations) they recieve public funding and serve as a continual 1:1 comparison in how public schools are failing these accepted Prussian standards.

Charter School Networks are immensely politically powerful. They combine the interests and support of massively wealthy Americans (ex. Betsy DeVos) with the political support of city populations who want a school today to send their children. They have used this political capital to solidify the dominance of testing as an educational measuring stick, they target urban school districts as areas that need expertise and guidance from outside of the existing community, they weaken existing public school districts, and they have paved the way for the expansion of school choice voucher programs. It is hard for me to consider systems of exclusion in education without thinking of this political force.

So what? 

From my perspective, this is where we currently sit in education. Regimentation is more the rule than ever, as any school in CSI status can attest. Efforts to reform education are difficult, and too often are now based in online or AI-generated curriculum. However, I do think there is actually an easy path forward that we refuse to consider.

In the committee I referenced earlier, we learned about many schools that radically improved through shared-governance models. This model is different in many places, but the concept boils down to something simple. Share power across all levels of an educational community, rather than just narrowly confining who makes the decisions. Essentially, create a true "Community School." Allow the students, parents and teachers to really contribute to decision-making, reduce the amount of external requirements that are being placed on all schools, and give the school funding necessary to change or add what it needs. We are terrified of doing this in schools that are not predominantly white, another lovely example of systemic racism in America, but giving a local community power over their school will result in changes that make sense for education, rather than Reville's other two systems.

OR nearly every time we invest more money in a school or district, things improve. So we could just spend WAY more money. That would probably work really well too.