From early childhood to graduate education, a lot of attention has been paid to our education system over the last few years. The general consensus has been that our education system is no longer serving us as well as it once did. No one today would argue that America's elementary and secondary education system is the best in the world (Although, I think such an argument can easily be made about our post-secondary education system). Test scores show that Americans rank about average relative to other developed nations, and there is a general belief that we are faring especially poorly in terms of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
The policy solutions we have developed to address these problems are market innovations and accountability through testing. The theory is that by introducing competition into the education system and creating a system of visible accountability, schools will be forced to improve services to their students or lose them. Both George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama's Race to the Top emphasize standards and assessments as ways of improving education. Certainly, measuring a problem is one way to emphasize it and place it on the policy agenda, but is this the only way?
One of the reasons that I assigned education policy as the substantive chapter along with Peters' chapter on evaluation is that we can see the debate about education policy evaluation and change happening before our eyes. What are the goals of our education system? How do we measure those goals? If test scores are valid forms of measurement and many public schools are failing, how should we change our policies? Do we tweak our current policies or come up with something new? Is school choice effective? Are smaller class-sizes effective? Should we give low and middle class parents the freedom to move their children our of a "failing school" if it means that it will leave those students who cannot take advantage of a voucher, and the public school as an institution worse off? How much can we really expect from the public education system?
Most policymakers seem to accept the idea that our current policies on K-12 education need to be changed in some way. We are currently trying to figure out what changes we want to make, and innovation is really the buzzword for education. Usually, this comes in the form of new charter schools that enter the education market. Some of these innovations, like the KIPP schools and Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone have been incredibly successful at addressing educational inequality. But there have also been downsides to the charter movement. 37 percent of charters actually perform worse than public schools on standardized tests (Of course, I am not completely convinced as to the validity of standardized tests). Some, like the for-profit colleges presented in College, Inc. have been created primarily for the benefit of their CEOs who make six-figures for managing small schools. There are a substantial number of innovations occurring within public schools, as well. Groups like Communities in Schools work to build support networks to help public school students succeed. Mentoring and support programs help attract and keep experienced teachers in the classroom. Federal loan forgiveness programs help attract and keep qualified teachers in low-income public schools.
Of course, in any discussion of education policy we have to keep in mind the factors that influence kids' lives outside of school. In the Planet Money podcast Eric Hanushek illustrates how important good teachers are to a child's education. As important as they are, what happens outside the classroom is even more important. Test scores tend to be better measures of socioeconomic factors than anything else. Low-income children generally start kindergarten and early education with a deficit in their exposure to vocabulary and reading skills. Parent participation, housing stability, neighborhood safety, and poverty all affect how well a child does in school. This is why I believe that Harlem Children's Zone is one of the best education initiatives we have. They have decided to do more than just educate their children, they have programming from birth to college that includes social services, community building, health care, and whole family interventions. They've decided to do "Whatever it Takes" to never let the children in their community fall behind. I think the big question is, would we ever have the commitment to implement something like this at a national level and would it be as successful in a different neighborhood?
There is a lot more that we can say about education in the United States, but since we are about to start reading Deborah Stone's critique of public policy, I want to leave this on a radical note. I have two resources to share with you. The first is an article about Finland, which has one of, if not the best education system in the world right now and has implemented education reforms that are the polar opposite of the U.S. education system. The second is a video from RSAnimate about rethinking the goals of education.
Most policymakers seem to accept the idea that our current policies on K-12 education need to be changed in some way. We are currently trying to figure out what changes we want to make, and innovation is really the buzzword for education. Usually, this comes in the form of new charter schools that enter the education market. Some of these innovations, like the KIPP schools and Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone have been incredibly successful at addressing educational inequality. But there have also been downsides to the charter movement. 37 percent of charters actually perform worse than public schools on standardized tests (Of course, I am not completely convinced as to the validity of standardized tests). Some, like the for-profit colleges presented in College, Inc. have been created primarily for the benefit of their CEOs who make six-figures for managing small schools. There are a substantial number of innovations occurring within public schools, as well. Groups like Communities in Schools work to build support networks to help public school students succeed. Mentoring and support programs help attract and keep experienced teachers in the classroom. Federal loan forgiveness programs help attract and keep qualified teachers in low-income public schools.
Of course, in any discussion of education policy we have to keep in mind the factors that influence kids' lives outside of school. In the Planet Money podcast Eric Hanushek illustrates how important good teachers are to a child's education. As important as they are, what happens outside the classroom is even more important. Test scores tend to be better measures of socioeconomic factors than anything else. Low-income children generally start kindergarten and early education with a deficit in their exposure to vocabulary and reading skills. Parent participation, housing stability, neighborhood safety, and poverty all affect how well a child does in school. This is why I believe that Harlem Children's Zone is one of the best education initiatives we have. They have decided to do more than just educate their children, they have programming from birth to college that includes social services, community building, health care, and whole family interventions. They've decided to do "Whatever it Takes" to never let the children in their community fall behind. I think the big question is, would we ever have the commitment to implement something like this at a national level and would it be as successful in a different neighborhood?
There is a lot more that we can say about education in the United States, but since we are about to start reading Deborah Stone's critique of public policy, I want to leave this on a radical note. I have two resources to share with you. The first is an article about Finland, which has one of, if not the best education system in the world right now and has implemented education reforms that are the polar opposite of the U.S. education system. The second is a video from RSAnimate about rethinking the goals of education.
I think that as a country we are very blessed. I seriously never knew how much goes into public policy and decision making. We are lucky to have a system, regardless of people's opinions. And there are just things that need to be worked out in some areas. Education is an issue that definitely needs some work, and so many people are dedicated to it. I think that it is a change and work in progress, but change takes some time.
ReplyDeleteDevon Kirschmann
ReplyDeletePAF 340
I think the true problem is (for now at least) the initiatives taken by the government (for example, No Child Left Behind), just focus on trying to control curriculum by requiring standardized testing, when the true issue revolves around many factors. As you explained, the socioeconomic factors should be considered as well because how a child performs in school has a lot to do with what is going on in their life outside of school. (the movie "Freedom Writers" is a perfect example of this). Also, resources within the school and the varying education levels across the states may also be contributing factors to our "average" standing compared to the rest of the world. I think that these factors need to be focused on too in order to implement an effective policy that would be successful.