Having gone through California’s public education system in the 1970’s and 80’s (please don’t calculate my age) , I am impressed that I can even formulate a complete sentence. In Chapter 5 of The Flat World and Education titled “A Tale of Three States”, Linda Darling-Hammond called my beautiful home state a “cautionary tale” where “mismanagement meets aggressive neglect”. I remember hearing rumblings about Prop. 13 as a kid, but never understood it. Reading the term “disinvested” in regards to what happened to state funding during that time period made it clear to me just how CA’s ranking slid from first to practically worst in the nation.
While it is true that not all kinds of spending improve student learning, underfunding can certainly not allow the state to fulfill its constitutional obligation to provide a “minimally adequate education” (pg. 119). I find this term personally and professionally shocking. Do we expect our students and teachers to be “minimally adequate”? How can we expect our system to dramatically improve when the bar is set so low? In contrast, the language Korea uses to describe their system is “thinking schools, learning nation”. Striking difference. Throughout Chapters 4-6, Darling-Hammond describes the key to building strong educational systems is by using funds to invest in skillful teachers. This confirms my belief that student learning is all about the teacher. Parents instinctively know this, which is why our elementary school’s Open House night is a prime time for parents to shop for their child’s future teachers. One direct benefit I had never considered of increasing teacher quality and training is the impact it has on systematic change. LDH attributes Finland’s success in large part to the autonomy of the local schools. “Policy makers decided it they invested in very skillful teachers, they could allow local schools more autonomy to make decisions about what and how they teach- a reaction against the oppressive, centralized system they sought to overhaul.” (pg. 169) Trusting and training teachers like the professionals they are instead of being forced to use an “overly prescriptive curriculum” (pg. 156) seems to be a critical component of systematic improvement. Despite the bleak horror story of California’s abysmal past, these chapters actually gave me some hope about our future. Improving teacher quality is something we absolutely have control over. Incentivizing teachers to seek higher education, including National Board Certification, seems to be a relatively simple first step. Offering subsidies for high need locations would allow urban schools a better opportunity to compete for highly qualified teachers. North Carolina’s approach to recruiting high school students into the profession, especially males,minorities, math/science backgrounds, also seems to have merit (pg. 142). Of course, these are only first steps as continuous teacher training is required to truly see long lasting impact.
1 Comment
Joe Madigan
6/27/2016 04:49:38 pm
Sounds like you and I were in the California public school system at pretty similar times. I was fortunate in that I grew up in a pretty good school district and feel like my public school education prepared me pretty well for college. I know times are different nowadays, and California has definitely taken a dip in the last 30 years.
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Dana HandI teach Read 180 at Northwood Elementary School and I am passionate about reading (obviously!) In my "free time" I love hanging out with my 2 teenagers and taking our two dogs for long walks. Archives
March 2017
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