Worse off when they leave

One of the Quotes in H & S at the beginning of chapter 4 says something that is quite accurate in my opinion, but for reasons that are not often addressed. It states

"Both left and right agree that there's something seriously wrong with our public education system. Our children are actually worse off when they leave the system than when they enter it."
- Campaign for America's Children

Based on my limited exposure to the American school system I believe that this may be the case, but not as much because of the quality of the classroom education that they receive but I feel that the emotional health of children in many US public schools takes quite a beating. If general school culture (the way that students ineract with each other) was applied to a cooperate model, many of the corporation's employees would be fired for creating a hostile and non-conducive work environment. Being from a different educational system which was not quite as rough as this one is. I am often moved by the kinds of statements and stories I hear of the harshness of the school culture. Judgementalism, and merciless teasing and bullying at an age when their perceptions of the world and of themselves are only just developing seem quite cruel and inappropriate. I fear that even children who come form healthy loving homes, if they fall on the wrong side of the acceptance game in school, can come out seriously emotionally scarred from the experience.

T & C Chapter 3 - Wisdom of Practice

It honestly amazes me how blind policy makers can be to a very simple concept in their implementation of school reform. That there must be enough room in the implementation to allow for those on the ground to regroup and adjust the policies in alignment with the required goals. Even if teachers are consulted in the development of the policies, there should be flexibility for the teachers implementing the policies (some in different situations and under different circumstances from the ones who recommended and developed the policies) to adjust to ensure alignment with the goals. With the number of pitfalls that past reform strategies have had, it is surprising that this is not already the norm in reform. It makes what McLaughlin and Talbert call an

"integrated reform strategy [of] seeking policy coherence at the classroom core, in the everyday interactions of students and teachers around the content"

T & C pg 83 appear to be an unattainable utopia. Something so simple should not be so out of reach.

T & C refers to this as letting the teachers use their "Wisdom of Practice" to alter what is necessary, in the implememtation of policies.

Quality of Teachers

The split between/amongst the different perspectives on the effectiveness of the effects of the "Highly Qualified Teacher" standard of the No Child Left Behind Act very much mirrors tha argument on the effectiveness of charter schools and some of the responses to attempted implementation of such school reform.
It may look good on paper but its implementation is not quite flexible or individualized enough to help or actually solve the problem in many cases. Effecting a blanket solution and then leaving some of the details (e.g. recertification of veteran teachers) to the schools, simply puts us in the same place we were before it was implemented. We may have the paper that says we're up to spec, but would not have solved our teacher quality problems. Each situation would need to be looked at specifically so that solutions to poor teaching quality can be effectively implemented. Blanket solutions that "paper over" real issues seem to be endemic in Public school reform.

Logistics of minority statistics

The politics of racial segregation, desegregation, majority, and minority agendas continues in school and national policy. Statistics abound throughout our readings on the success of failure of different ethnic groups and the shift in the american demographic map. I find it interesting that a country as mixed as this one continues to track growth /expansion in numbers of minority groups. I believe that those statistics may become subject to the same pitfalls that the assessment of the school system's performance has. We are not using the right indicators.

Races continue to mix in this day and age. As more children are born to mixed white-asian, white-hispanic or black-white homes, will they be counted in the expansion of majority caucasians or are they minorities?

Separation and inclusion

Unfortunately, regardless of its contribution to the promotion of the american dream in public schooling, keeping students of widely varying ability and/or aptitude together does indeed affect the education received by those with higher aptitude or abilities. The fact remains that a responsive teacher cannot teach any faster than the pace that the class will move. This affects not just the pace but the quality of education. We are facing similar issue in curricula at the career/design school where I teach. There are two degree tracks that share certain technical courses. when one program curriculum was altered and the students in that program became more advanced, we realized that they were coming back together in their final courses in that track with distinctly different skill sets. Teaching these courses is very hard, and there is simply no win-win situation without dividing up the students based on their ability and giving them instruction accordingly. I think there are circumstances under which ability grouping simply cannot be done away with, it is the only fair and accurate way to deliver instruction to all students under these circumstances.

U.S. Census Underscores Diversity

Though I agree with this article on the concept of educating our young in multicultural issues and diversity awareness, I feel that there is an aspect that is being missed. With much of the growing numbers of students in minority groups, there may be larger numbers of racially different groups but I believe that on closer examination we may find that many cultures are mixing and/or changing. I find that more and more you cannot necessarily tell someone's culture from their race or ethnicity. There are now asians who have pretty much been raised with african american values. Many African americans (blacks) who are raised in anglo-saxon protestant culture and then many different distinctions such as africans/(specifically Ghanaians) like myself who are not quite african-american and whose culture resembles a british cultural structure more than it does black american or white american cultures. I think that race, ethnicity nd culture needs to be treated a little more accurately, and that besides just building the awareness of the different cutures, we must begin to be aware of the changing cultural 'markers' or indicators.

Kindergarten - A glimmer of hope put out

It appeared to me based on the reading on the historic or initial kindergarten structure and philosophies, that the principles on which it was based embodied much of what many complain is missing today. The moral and social values that these institutions were created to give and the nurturing they included is sorely missed in education today. As These institutions became more systematized and made to resemble the regular school system , the rules that public schools function under began to apply. And much of the value was lost.
I believe that much of the problems students/children have today stem from the lack of these initial Froebelan influences. The nurture and philosophy that teaches children their part in a functioning society. I believe its demise contributes to our large numbers of educated, yet socially dysfunctional children and youth.

NCLB - What counts doesn't really count

The No Child Left Behind act represents a very common trend in educational reform policies. Many of the policies are developed with a particular problem in mind, and even when the issues that are creating these problems are effectively identified, their implementation leaves much to be desired. The performance indicators used to effect these policies are ra rely accurately identified. For example, the test scores that are used to measure the schools' performance do not necessarily measure the important factors in successful education (i.e. problem solving, creative thinking etc). When test scores are used as primary indicators much of the education required for successful schooling of students is left by the wayside. Schools may end up focusing on the tests so much that the quality of the actual education drops in order to get the test scores up. If the test objectives and/or training processes were tied more accurately into the essential factors required to give each student an excellent education, perhaps the schools' emphasis on this initiative may have been effective. Again, the distance between policy makers and the end of the line for policy implementers (i.e. teachers) carries in it's expanse numerous opportunities for inaccuracy and deviance from the initial objectives. The more policy makers are able to include the voices of those who will implement their policies and maintain flexibility to include the many different scenarios and situations, the more accurate our performance indicators may be towards fixing the problems on the ground.