Accentuate the Positive- Song and Dance in Education

Accentuate the Positive, An Educational Song and Dance

3.7.10

Public Education Matters

On the wall of my office I have a number of cartoons that have something or other to say about education. They’ve been clipped from various newspapers and magazines over the years. My very favorite is a Peanuts cartoon, where Linus is bemoaning that he’s tired of hearing about Dick and Jane and he’d rather hear about how Anna Karenina throws herself from the train, a funny reminder to myself to always pay attention to students’ real needs, levels, progress, and interests rather than just blindly following a lesson plan. A reminder that teaching is rather like a dance and that you should always be trying to meet the students where-ever they “are” rather than where you expect them to be or hope them to be.

One of my other favorite cartoons shows a man with a chart that has an arrow pointing downward. He is standing before a group of men in suits saying “Due to recent budget cuts, I can give you the song or the dance, but not both.” This cartoon represents my frustration with education budgets and funding at times. I’m often tempted to say “What more do you want from me?!!!! I can only do so much with what I have!”

You’d think maybe that would have been the reaction of the states to Barak Obama and Arne Duncan’s “Race to the Top” contest. You’d think that because the economy is so bad, that they’d have analyzed what the “song and dance for money” would cost them against their real chances of winning and the actual “gain” and maybe just maybe have decided that it just wasn’t worth it. But well, you’d be wrong if you thought that, because it seems that 41 of our 50 states applied. This means these 41 states all spent resources (money and time) on applying for something that most of them had no hope of winning in the first place. As it happens, 16 of the 40 states were chosen to be only finalists. It will be interesting to see now in April who will be chosen for this first round of money.

Now some might argue that it wasn’t all wasted time because the policies and programs created for the application might be positive reforms after all for the individual states ----even if they weren’t national winners. But I would argue back that if you see the actual application, for my state at least, you’ll see that most of it seems just a “dance” or “jumping through hoops” and nothing much of real substance or backed up by research. (On top of that, as I’ll point out in a minute, it may be even more ominous than that, in that the application seems filled with an agenda that has nothing to do with really improving public education.) Many are speculating about why these particular states were chosen over others and insinuate that there might have been political issues involved rather than true educational merit.

Regardless of the reasons for being rejected, not all is lost for those states who were losers. They can apply again in June for Phase 2 money with finalists being announced in August and final winners being chosen in September. My State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett has already announced his intent to plow ahead with his “losing” Fast Forward reform program in the hope of getting in on Phase 2 funds. He indicated in a public statement that he is undaunted and that he will be most interested in getting feedback from the feds about why Indiana lost out on Phase One money.

The interesting thing about this is that many of the people in my state who have examined Dr. Bennett’s application have been quite appalled about the negative, almost punitive tone that the whole Fast Forward plan assumed. One comment I heard was that it was hard to imagine from the tone of it that anyone could write something like it unless their actual intent was to be negative. I’ve also heard many people comment that Fast Forward seemed to have very clear agendas, not of reform of educational practices or improving student achievement, but of eliminating the right of collective bargaining in our state and of privatizing education. (Two asides- If you are not a fan of collective bargaining, you might want to do a little research about levels of student achievement in states with collective bargaining versus states without collective bargaining. You might change your mind. As for privatizing education, I’m just wondering here, when you privatize education, how do you maintain PUBLIC education? And Do we value public education or not?)

Anyway, the interesting thing is that many are speculating that THE REASON Indiana’s Fast Forward plan was rejected for RttT funds was because it was so very negative and not a positive plan for educational change.

Following that speculation, opinions were proffered about whether or not Dr. Bennett would be so arrogant to push Fast Forward forward without making changes as indicated by the RttT rejection or if he would just more subtly disguise his agendas.

My problem with all of this is that it is costing us money with very little hope of any real gain for children, even if “we” would happen to “win.” First, you should know that in any state that is a “winner” a significant amount of the money “won” stays at the state level to hire people to monitor the data about the implementation of the programs. That’s a stipulation of RttT winnings. Ironically, my state’s department of education has been pondering how they would be able to hire enough people to analyze that amount of data with the less than “living wages” they would be able to offer and so they had been making plans to “outsource” these jobs to outside companies. That just seems slightly “off-key” to me or maybe a “mis-step.”

Furthermore, as an example, I was told that the award for one of my nearby districts (if my state had won a berth in RttT) would have been around $90,000 for ONE year only. After that it would be up to the state and the local system to continue any new programs without federal help. Now, sure if someone gave me that amount of money, I’d be one happy, dancing gal, no doubt! I’d pay off my mortgage or my children’s college debt. But a one-time $90,000 gift for an entire school district at the same time your state is taking the hit of massive state cuts- that’s maybe 3 first year teachers’ salaries with no hope of continuing their employment in the coming years. Or maybe it’s the funding for some new technology, but with technology you always have to be able to upgrade, update and maintain it. How would you be able to do that? Maybe it’s new texts and materials, but textbooks and materials go out of date and then what? Maybe it’s training for teachers? Well professional development has to be ongoing, as staffs and circumstances change, so how would you keep it up- especially in a state that has all but eliminated the funding for professional development?

So, in the meantime, while we in education are all dancing and/or singing for federal funding, how many student needs are going unmet? How many reductions in force are being sent out, reducing teaching staffs and creating larger class sizes? How many current Music, Art, and Physical Education programs are being cut?

In the meantime, while we in education in my state are dealing with the rejection of our state’s song and dance, how are we simultaneously to cope with our Governor’s slashing of $300 million dollars from the schools’ budgets?

Please bear with me while I share with you a not quite random and “cute” education story from my “collection.” One day in February several years back, I was walking down the hall of a school when a bulletin board about the Presidents (in honor of President’s Day) caught my attention. Student papers with “facts” about the President of their choice were posted. On one of these, about George Washington, a child wrote “Washington met with the Indians around a campfire. He said to the Indians “Dance and I will give you money.” Now I’m not sure of the story behind that “fact” but what I am sure of is that it amused me to no end at the time.

But here we are in the year 2010 and it seems that Washington is saying “Dance and I will give you money” to the states and we are starting to see the “Indians’” responses and so far, I just have to say that I’m not real crazy about my state’s negative “dance routine.” I’m also just not sure that it’s going to work out any better for any of us than it did for the Indians.

I’m wondering if the pursuit of the phase 2 money of RttT is worth it.

I’d like to offer that rather than “singing and dancing” for federal money to fund education, and rather than creating negative agenda-driven plans for privatization, I’d like to see us follow Bing Crosby’s advice and Accentuate the Positive that is already there in PUBLIC education if you look for it. It’s a great tune for singing AND dancing.