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Education
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Is education really an American value?
Political parties today
The Bush new approach
Current specifics to watch for:
Where WomenMatter stands
What's the Problem Now?
Is education really an
American value?
 America
has always been the land of variety and diversity. From the time of
the thirteen colonies and their very different economies until today,
schooling has always been connected to wealth and property. And control
over what is taught has always been a matter of debate. Religion has
always been an issue in schooling in America.
People with money can always find what they believe
to be appropriate schooling for their children. Whether the schools
they choose actually have the best teachers, use the best methods
to encourage critical independent thinking, and encounter the most
challenging ideas, depends a great deal on how much parents know.
Not all parents know if their children are being challenged. Not all
parents want their children to think independently.
What is at issue today is two-fold:
- the relationship of poverty to schooling
- the relationship of personal beliefs to spending
money on schooling.
The political parties compete for voters on these
two issues and the current solid base of each of the two major parties
is cemented in these issues of money and beliefs.
The politics of schooling
for the poor:
Since the 60's and the Johnson War on Poverty, the
Democrats have been known as the party that wanted to put federal
dollars into local schools. The Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 1965 gave through Title I (now called Chapter I) billions of
dollars each year into schools in poverty areas, but although test
scores have gone up, the gap between poor children and the others
continues. In major cities, only one in three or four students actually
graduates from high school. School buildings in urban areas continue
to crumble as the wealthier taxpayers move to the suburbs. Many people
living outside major cities don't want their tax dollars to go to
other communities.
What makes for success in learning?
Success in learning is made up of a number of
factors, most of which are tied to the family situation. Research,
guidelines, regulations, and tax dollars are aimed, often separately,
at the web of causes of successful learning. Among the ones we know
are:
- The health and nutrition
of the mother during pregnancy.
- The health, nutrition,
and experiences of a child from age 0 to age 3. These are the critical
years as more than half of all brain development happens in those
years.
- Differences in early
childhood experiences and use of standard language at home. Teachers
identify a multi-year gap both in children's vocabulary and in comfort
with school settings on the first day of Kindergarten. We know that
many children from poor families are missing the self-control that
is required for learning in a classroom. They transfer the behavior
for survival on the streets into the school setting. They need new
skills for school.
- Teachers, especially
new teachers, have a hard time separating learning difficulties which
are medical problems from behavior problems caused by lack of a child's
experience with behaviors required in a school setting. Pre-schools
should be in the hands of experienced educators or educated adults,
not just unskilled friends and family or low-paid day workers.
- Reading in the home.
Children who see adults reading and are read to have a measurable
advantage over those who don't. Most of education requires reading.
Math, science, and social studies are all presented to learners in
writing. Use of a computer requires the ability to read and to write.
- Experienced teachers
trained in child development and teaching techniques. Knowledgeable
teachers can choose lesson strategies suitable to different age ranges.
They know what the normal range of child development is and are better
able to call for diagnostic help by counselors and medical personnel
when needed. Experienced teachers avoid true-false and multiple choice
testing and use a variety of methods of evaluating how a child processes
new information, what a child has learned, and what is needed next.
- Teachers who have
strong liberal arts and science subject matter background. Teachers
who themselves are serious readers and continuing life long learners
bring the wealth of learning to children of all ages, as well as serving
as role models for what school is for.
- Teachers with a strong
educational background choose learning materials beyond textbooks
and bring their own questions to class to let children know that learning
is for everyone for a lifetime. Often the schools in poor neighborhoods
do not have teachers with advanced education in math, science, and
history/ economics/social studies. Therefore the children do not get
the background needed to compete in higher education and in the workplace
for the higher paid jobs.
This then is a checklist for parents and other
caring adults. It is also a checklist for teachers and for students.
Their perspectives may be different but the reality of what works
is the same for all. It tells us where our education-related dollars
should be spent. We can then judge the schools, school systems, and
the lawmakers by this list. When they try to tell us that one of these
items is THE cause or THE cure, we know better.
This then is also a checklist
for parents, teachers, and other caring adults as we choose our legislators
and the people who will lobby the legislators for us. What do they
know? What do they vote for? Do they understand that all children
need these inputs? What do they think government is for? And how do
they make sure that our tax dollars match the checklist of needs?
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Political parties today
Today all political parties say they are in favor
of education. However, beneath that surface are deep differences in
philosophy, different assumptions about what works, and significant
differences in how many tax dollars should be spent and what they should be spent on.
We women who hold major responsibility
for the well-being of children need to analyze arguments, programs,
and budgets in order to use our collective strength to support the
groups that lobby for us and choose the candidates in the primaries
that will help us make a difference when they become lawmakers.
Federal dollars and a philosophy of diversity
When tax dollars come from the federal government
they cross neighborhoods, states, and beliefs. In a nation of such
diversity, this point of view, that schooling should include all children
and, therefore, include all beliefs or try to focus on information
that is not affected by beliefs, has become a philosophy of its own.
This connection between federal aid to education and
separation of religious beliefs from public schooling has become the
philosophy of the Democratic Party and those others who believe that,
in the name of fairness, all Americans should have a common educational
experience that does not favor any one group or set of beliefs.
Tax dollars from this point of view go to the long
checklist of necessary factors that would help disadvantaged children
bridge the gap of opportunity.
State dollars and a philosophy of specific beliefs
It is important to understand why states' rights, local control, and federal aid to religious beliefs are linked in the Republican positions on education.
It is also important to understand the desire of Democrats, Greens, and many independents for national standards of openness and fairness supported by national tax dollars. The effort to enforce separation of church and state by federal action bumps into the history of education in our country.
Historically, schooling is locally controlled by state and local legislatures and their taxing power. Before and after the Civil War, "states' rights" was always an attempt to preserve the way of thinking and the way of life of the local majority. (Click here for the history of local control and religion)
Local control and states' rights were associated with local power over public education, but never until recently associated with federal dollars to control what is taught. The 1994 Gingrich-led sweep of Republicans into state office resulted in the control of many state governments by Christian religious groups within the party. The strong Republican takeover was targeted to the state level, and the very active Christian religious groups within the Republican Party took advantage of this success to use their power to run and win office in school boards and library boards.
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The Bush Administration links federal and state funding to specific beliefs and programs
The Bush II administration asserts the importance of educational opportunity by putting federal dollars into education, particularly reading and testing. In the law named No Child Left Behind, the philosophy of education is clear. Schools are treated like a business whose product are readers. The individual school is held accountable for results and is rewarded with federal tax dollars if test scores go up and punished if they dont. It is a basic philosophy of the current Republican Party that government should pay for opportunity and require measurable results.
In addition to focusing teachers and curriculum on testing, the administration plan also ties funding to a definite religious position on some issues, especially health, education, and science.
How does the Republican Party today push federal control of ideas? One way is by allowing parents to take public tax dollars to send their children to private religious schools. Another is by funneling federal tax dollars to public schools through school programs that control learning in ways the Republicans approve, such as abstinence-only sexuality education.
Much of this policy contradicts the philosophy of "states' rights". This is very different from the Libertarian strain of conservatism, which believes in less government at every level. This is, however, directly tied to the Republicans' ability to create a majority of voters at the state level.
What are the specific beliefs of the Bush administration?
What are those beliefs? That schools should restrict what is taught and promote a specific point of view about appropriate roles for men and women, the development of the human race, and active sexual behavior.
They believe that society is anchored in the traditional family structure. They believe that different sexual orientation, gay, lesbian, and transgendered, is the result of wrong choices, rather than regularly occurring differences in human development. They believe that allowing a woman to end a pregnancy without the agreement of her parents, her husband, her lover, or the man who fathered the child will open up the importance of family structure to debate and questioning.
They anchor their beliefs in a particular, literalist, reading of their Bible. Believers are so secure and certain that they are correct that they work to prevent students from openly questioning their views or learning the rules of evidence in academically reviewed studies of either science or history.
How do we decide whom to support?
First of all we must keep ourselves informed, knowing
that groups use schooling as a way into power over other's minds and
other's votes. Once we have informed ourselves on what works in education
and when and why these differences run so deep and are so critical,
we need to:
Stay in touch with either a political party and/or
a lobbying group that can alert us to the specifics of bills before
legislatures at the local, state, and national level.
Knowing, as the research tells us, that education
is much more than schooling, we need to look at the checklist of success
factors for learning and then match them to the political party and
to its candidates. When we hear that one factor matters more than others is
the cause or the cure, we should be skeptical.
Ask pointed informed questions of candidates in the
party primaries. That is the moment to make a real difference in the
outcomes of educational policy. Ask what the candidate believes should
be done. Does she/he choose just one item off the checklist of necessary
action or do they show understanding of the need for a comprehensive
approach to schooling for the disadvantaged in high poverty, low tax
base communities?
What does it mean to be liberal or conservative on
education? Liberal means to be open to all ideas and information and
risk allowing students to make their own judgments. Conservative means
to restrict children's learning, thereby conserving or holding on
to a particular point of view.
Examine the actual budgets: do the programs actually
get the tax dollars and the educational support of books, supplies,
training, and building repair to the school and classroom level where
the teachers and the students live?
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Current specifics to watch for:
Accountability and testing; what is a failing school?
- The Bush plan in the new education law originally
called for testing every child every year. This gives parents and
teachers and the students a detailed report on how they are doing,
compared to group or "aggregate" test scores that measure average
scores of this year's fourth, eighth, and eleventh grade whole classes
against last year's classes which contain different students. At
issue is the money for testing and the standards for testing. Does
the federal government provide the money to the states and local
districts or is it another unfunded mandate? Who has the money?
- Bowing to states' rights the law lets each state
decide what the standards for testing ought to be. The tests are
not the same and the standards are not the same. How do families
know before a student takes a national exam to get into college
that their state standards do not measure up to other states?
- If most of the students in your school are failing
the test, does the government provide more help to the school or
take away funding?
Standards for hiring teachers. Standards for judging
teachers.
How does government intend to use our tax dollars
to raise the level of teaching? Will they put dollars into their priorities
by raising the status of teachers, thereby attracting well-educated
breadwinners in addition to the second career in the family?
Where is the money in the
budget?
Has it been both appropriated and authorized (set
aside in the plan and money actually being spent)?
Is content controlled or
open and comparative?
Can students and teachers discuss any issue, including
sexuality and religion?
Does the school foster open minds and critical independent
thinking or belief in a specific point of view and the need to control
the information, the teaching, and the application of learning?
What is the role of science and history in addition
to reading, writing, and math skills? Is learning based in the rules
of evidence, those developed by scholars, or personal beliefs or particular
religious positions? Is religion a subject of study or is religion
the filter for ideas and information, or is religion not to be mentioned
at all?
Choice in schooling.
Not just what choice
but why. Charters and vouchers use public monies from school
budgets and transfer money with the child to another school. The
school that loses a child is assumed to have failed the child and,
therefore, must pay for transportation to the new school. Home schooling
to control or limit what a child is exposed to in ideas and in friends
or to broaden a child's experience because the parents are fortunate
enough to be well educated and can afford for one parent to stay home
and be the teacher.
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WomenMatter stands for equality
for women and our right to make decisions.
Each of us needs to be informed and then decide.
Religious organizations make their positions known
to their members.
If you wish to be informed and support openness, you
can tie into the Freedom to Learn Network which will email you when
action needs to be taken.
For research on sexuality education, SIECUS is a long
established medically based foundation that can be reached online.
click here to go
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