It should be noted that Jeff Duncan-Andrade's school, Roses In Concrete, is a charter school. It is unfortunate that the current rhetoric of the Democratic party has become hostile to charter schools in order to align with teachers unions (which, just like prison guards unions and the police unions, often perpetuate the systemic racism of the status quo). For many Black and Latinx families (hundreds of thousands of whom are on charter school waitlists), charter schools are the only high quality school option for their children.
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I really disagree that "The foundation of public schools in this nation is rotten to the core."
I have worked as a music teacher in eleven different schools over an almost twenty year period and have found nothing rotten (except maybe in the staff fridge a couple of times.)
Schools are filled with staff whose earnestness and belief astounds and students who are open to the joy of learning. The problem? Lack of funding. Lack of resources. Pure and simple. How do I go deep when I have twenty plus learners of all levels? How do I truly individualize when I have forty minutes once a week?
Word salad from a college professor about the cultural connectedness of the Maori sounds well and good but smaller class sizes and more individual attention would actually move the needle on learning.
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I read the article with great interest, but came away with no idea what concrete suggestions were being made.
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As a teacher, you know you are doing something right when kids make the effort to overcome obstacles just to get to your class.
4
"Your culture is a priority"? I'm so glad my immigrant family didn't have that attitude. The priority in their schools was education. Likewise in their family. The Dr probably knows this but can't comfortably say that here. That's a shame.
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What an interesting point: troubled students aren’t going to malls to shoot people, they are going to schools. What does that say?
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Focus on student's needs so they suceed!
for those who claim teachers are not getting paid enough, look at some district.
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2018/school-districts/san-diego/san-dieguito-union-high/
100k - 200K
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2018/san-diego-county/
Yes, pay good teachers adequately. But how can we fire abusive teachers?
Which occupation in the world is not tied to performance? Teachers get raises even when they are abusive, sexually violate kids, and protect by their unions.
What kind of a system is this?
Let's keep this in perspective:
Teacher are servcie providers to the schools, not the customers. Therefore, when they do NOT perform, they should get proper training. If they still persists their abusive behavior, they should go! Fire them.
Teacher raises should be attached to students reviews (customers.)
When we change this paradigm. Students are the customers. School staff and administrators are service providers. These service providers should be evaluated on a quarterly basis and raises and bonus should be partly attached to these reviews.
Mr. Duncan-Andrade is amazing. And he should get paid handsomely. But there are too many bad apples in the school sysytem. Let's reform by taking out the union representatives from our our school boards. Stop the conflict of interest.
http://www.standinguptogoliath.com/
I totally agree that every public school has some magic happening and that every child deserves magic. Schools are filled with teachers, coaches, counselors, custodians and principals who build relationships and make students feel like they are part of something important. There isn’t a test score to measure this and parent almost only look at test results when choosing public over private schools. The magic doesn’t stop with employees...parents and the community are so important. We can all build relationships with our schools and add a little magic!
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In the best public school systems around the world, teachers collaborate. And they are given time on the clock to collaborate. In my 30 years teaching, we’ve been told we must collaborate, then we are given neither the time nor the guidance to do so. The upshot is not simply isolation, but accusations of favoritism in student scheduling among teachers, favoritism on the part of administration, and a lot of cynicism and defeatism among the presumptively non-favored faculty.
Most teachers have good ideas, but without collegial and administrative collaboration and support, the ideas usually remain only half formed.
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It is sad that where you live greatly effects the public school experience your children are supplied. And it is sad that the divergence between good and bad schools is getting wider.
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Dr. Duncan-Andrade's comments about schools being set up to "sort" students and doing it extremely well is the crux of the matter, as is his insistence that we need to think about what we want schools to educate students FOR. They can't be just about having students assimilate globs of data points (which they will forget), but to become competent and knowledgeable adult social beings. This is a conversation we need to be having all across K-16. There's no way to do this "at scale."
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Lots of great insights here. I’d like to propose an educational system that is not so, SO ponderously - AND EXPENSIVELY - heavy with administrators and “experts”, who spend absolutely no time in classrooms, and replace them with more teachers, social workers, SLPs, OTs, tutors, etc., along with up-to-date materials that represent the multi-cultural beauty of America’s students AND their parents. It’s not as if administrators support or mentor good/responsive teachers - in fact, they do the exact opposite - threatening them with the “documentation of dysfunction”. What’s more, funding for the education of each student should be equal throughout the country - with all education dollars from municipal, state, and federal sources thrown into one big pot and distributed equally - imagine the difference that would make! Talk about shaking up the rotten education system at its core - educational resources for our children should not differ by zip code, which is tragically what has happened.
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I see you, too, live in Connecticut and therefore know the crushing dead weight of top-heavy overpaid school administrators. Is there a worse example of this anywhere else in the USA?
An interesting read, though frustrating because I feel the lack of detail does a disservice to Mr. Duncan-Andrade's "vision." Parsing down his interview to just "hyperlocal" leaves the impression that Mr. Duncan-Andrade is advocating a balkanized system of education and curriculum, specific to the demographic of that school district. Is each individual district to decide what they want their students to be able to do once they have graduated? Many good points are brought up, but need to be fleshed out otherwise it is just so much puffery and platitudes (My mom is so wise...). I am sure Mr. Duncan-Andrade has more wisdom than that.
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The Education System believes you seek out the smartest as demonstrated by grades and then wonders about quality of instruction.
My personal belief, as a 50-year educator, wonders if we sought out some of those who struggled through school yet succeeded in life as the public defines success and maybe have better educated students graduating.
Just a thought for I know as a School Counselor not all high GPAs are equal. Neither does it show ability to use the knowledge assimilated. Yet, the students I work with who have 2.2 and even 3.2 unweighted GPAs seem to know how to succeed after high school. I think it might be they understand how to use the information from which they were taught. They know how to put pieces together that help in the next lesson in education. They know how to connect the dots and make a picture. They know how to make education work to enhance their worth and capabilities.
They are the future WE need to help.
They will be the ones who SOLVE our problems.
I wish others saw this as much as I do.
That glorious middle 50% is awesome and so full of potential that at times goes wasted.
If programs and universities would truly look at them, maybe our future would not seem so bleak. Give the a scholarship opportunity and the academic support to be successful even at a 2.
1 and the future can be marvelous.
And because YOU took a chance on them, they will probably want to help others from similar circumstances. I saw it at my HS.
1
@jbjones Finishing my story - that former graduate came back about seven years later, interviewed five students form the middle of the current grad class, and wrote five personal checks for $500 to each of them because they had dreams, had applied to the local scholarship committee but not awarded any of the $310,000 that year. Those who find success from the middle always find ways to help those of similar circumstances I believe.
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"We" don't need to define anything. A delusional, industrial-era approach to education has created a hungry government school monopoly in which kids exist as the hybrid between revenue-generating livestock and prisoners.
If we empowered school choice in this country, with a flexible universal voucher system, we would see the exact kind of localized flourishing that Dr. Duncan-Andrade describes here. Parents want schools that deliver both (1) real competence and (2) good values. The vast majority will sacrifice and do whatever they can to give those things to their children.
Too many schools have decided that competence and merit are tools of oppression and that values are only useful insofar as they divide people into tribes of oppressor and oppressed. Read about the woke ideological blindness of our graduate education programs in this country or George Packer's devastating commentary on the current state of NYC public schools in the Atlantic.
As a retired teacher, I am so sick of hearing “industrial” schools. In my thirty years of experience in middle school teaching , when funds were available, we had many wonderful teachers and programs introduce us to new and engaging ways to reach our students. I was from the era where we wrote our own lesson plans and were not required to parrot something in the teacher’s edition. Teachers don’t run schools. The state makes those decisions and tells us what to teach, and now, how to teach. Teachers working collaboratively can come up with wonderful ideas, definitely not of the industrial era. Why don’t you volunteer to work in a classroom of a local school or at least visit one before passing outdated notions as facts.
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@Cheryl Hays - thank you for sharing! Doesn't your experience vindicate my point that standardization and centralization have diminished the autonomy of teachers to do their jobs as you describe?
I want creative local solutions! I want motivated and personalized instruction from teachers who are honored and rewarded for their hard work. I don't want a bureaucrat in the capital making decisions for me.
1
"For what ? " This is the most important question , but we ignore it and argue about repairs of "rotten "system .
Years ago I had the miserable experience of performing job interviews for entry level clerical positions in the City of New York. I characterize them as miserable because at least 1/3 of the candidates were functionally illiterate. They could barely read and usually got about half the questions wrong on fundamental math (adding two positive three digit numbers)
These people had almost no chance of ever being fully employed. They sat in NY City public schools for twelve or more years, the teachers got paid, the administrators got paid, Mayors took credit for their graduation but they were not educated.
Standardized tests aren't the be-all and end all, they are flawed, but they should keep us from lying to students and the public by issuing diplomas to people who have been denied the right to be educated.
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Public education system is one of the few sectors that are not there to serve it’s customers (the students.)
Public education is an employment agency serving the administrators, the Teachers Union, the board of trustees, and the adult who work at the school.
When we shift the paradigm to focus on students, then we will see change.
Students have no power. Their parents have no time or power.
The abuse of power among administrators, teachers union, and district employees is a self serving with conflict of interest.
95% of school funding spent on salaries, not on students.
The teachers union failed not only students but their own members as well.
Teachers need to acquire new skills to be more as coaches. Smaller class sizes. Relevant curriculum. Add mandatory life skills. Integrate problem solving skills. Balance the day between academic, project based, physical activity, social\emotional development activities and skills...
3
What you’re calling for is a VERY tall order. For instance, becoming adept at leading students through project-based learning takes YEARS... Another “for instance:” teaching all the vital academic skills and ALSO making plans and activities to imbue socioemotional skills, well that would take hours each day to do well - and to differentiate broadly enough to serve the current abilities of a whole range of students. Teachers who can do those things... I say, PAY THEM LIKE KINGS AND QUEENS. But until we recognize that what the public imagines teachers should do also must come with a paycheck that allows teachers to, oh you know, not work a second job, then all your suggestions are pretty empty.
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@Jessa Forthofer
www.transparentcalifornia.com
In our district teachers get paid between 100K to 190K a year to teach 9 months of the year with many holidays and vacation time. That I would say, is very generous.
Our administrator get paid 200K to 250K, I would say it is generous.
The teacher union has abused their power and it is ridden with conflict of interests. Lastly, they act like a mafia.
There is much that can be done. The solutions are easily accessible.
Those who claim it will take years, it is a fallacy. Ample research shows of what works and what does not.
Schools are political in nature, and are not there to serve students needs.
When we focus on students needs, everyone will succeed!
@LetsSpeakUp transparent Ca includes benefits in the salary figures. That is not our take home pay.
2
Two things stand out here. First, listening to the kids, their stories, and taking inspiration from them. Why are they there and what do they need? This is not a new idea - relevance has been in and out of vogue in reform for years. But it matters.
Secondly, using the right data. Yes. And yes. Several months ago I sat with a team of middle school teachers with some sample questions from one of the tests used to establish accountability in our education system. Among the 10 adults in the room, not one of us could accurately answer the questions designed to assess middle school student literacy. Each had several plausible answers. In a school filled with kids who mostly fail, the image of hopelessness students must feel when given impossible choices in what is termed a high stakes exam does irreparable harm. Nor do these data serve any useful purpose for those responsible for their learning.
Keep it up, Dr. Duncan-Andrade. Teach your students to listen to theirs.
1
Yes. As a teacher I would love to throw out the grades. Not feedback, not evaluation and not critique--not expectations of progress and hitting benchmarks along the way, but GRADES. Grades are the coin with which one buys college admission. As the author states, grades primarily function as sorting and I would add falsely penalize students if they haven't learned "this" particular thing on "this" day at "this" time and are able to spit it back in "this" way. I want all my students to succeed, but if they do, I'm accused of grade inflation. Why should I aim for the "bell curve" for grades? Why is it good if some fail? How can we value a student's efforts at critical thinking and deep thoughts--even if not delivered in 5 paragraph timed essay form? By the time students arrive in high school, which I teach, they already have internalized who they are as learner...I'm an A student (smart) I'm a C student (not smart) I don't care (below C). I don't think it's really possible to underestimate the impact this thinking has on education.
I totally agree with the author that we as a society need to define what public education is for.
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Thank you, Duncan-Andrade, for your perspectives of a new direction for public schools. Yes to will instead of skills, as you point out, and to looking closely at why youth show up at their schools with guns. There is magic in many public school settings, as I saw while teaching in them for 25 years. May we look to that magic, a blend of amazing students and teachers, and make necessary changes in our public school systems. Could you be our next Secretary of Education??
2
I hope that our Mayor, the School’s Chancellor and Teacher Union read this. The Students in NYC Public Schools will benefit immensely.
1
We need to become more creative in the way we teach to reach every child. But the end result should not be so different : a person who is a critical thinker with verbal and math skills. Otherwise we are failing our children and our country.
1
Public schools are a fundamental part of our society, but they have been broken by our inability to create a new story for why kids go to school and what that experience should be like for them. I totally agree that we "need to go back to our founding principles." An "engaged citizenry" is simply not possible when we carve up learning into 45 or 60-minute blocks, when we separate out disciplines, when we force feed curriculum that we teach just in case kids may need to use it someday, and when we strip children of any agency to pursue learning on their own terms. We think that success is getting good grades, but more than anything, good grades show that some kids have figured out how to play the game of school. Have a student retake a test a month after taking it the first time if you really want an indicator of learning. (Spoiler alert: they've forgotten most of it...just like we did when we were in school.)
If you want to see the ill effects of a system that rewards kids for winning the game, look no further than the increasingly incurious, disengaged, functionally illiterate (by 21st Century standards) society we currently have. Teaching "critical thinking" via topics that kids have no interest or investment in leads to intellectual laziness. And at a moment when it's so easy to have your own biases confirmed on a daily basis, this is what you get, a population that is dangerously divided and can't talk across the breach.
"Public schools for what purpose" indeed.
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