We Must Flip Systems to Save America

The United States is teetering on a dangerous ledge, and our democracy is in crisis. Civil unrest is never a coincidence. Those who feel included, those who feel understood, those whose needs are being met, those who feel safe, those who feel like they have power don’t take to the streets. The protests that are happening in every major American city are the product of broken systems.

Photo credit: Flickr/Fibonacci Blue

Democracy, at its core, is a form of government in which the people have the power. When this becomes untrue, democracy fails. In American systems - political, economic, healthcare, education, law enforcement, and others - power has been consolidated by a select few. Those select few don’t tend to look like George Floyd. Or Breonna Taylor. Or Ahmaud Arbery. Or Loreal Tsingine. Or so many others who have had their lives needlessly taken.

Those with the ability to do so have leveraged their wealth and political power to construct in their image the systems that are supposed to serve and be controlled by the people. 

To save American democracy, we must flip our systems and give agency equitably to all. Decisions must be driven by the life experiences, expertise, and intimate knowledge of the communities that are most impacted by those decisions. Top-down hierarchies that systemize marginalization and consolidate power must be shattered, redesigned, and rebuilt. 

Solutions developed without complete understanding of their implications at the point of execution lead to unintended negative consequences at best, and intended negative consequences at worst. Not all who suffer from the erosion of democracy in our systems are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), but we cannot begin to fix what is broken without acknowledging that race impacts opportunity in the United States. 

As a teacher, I know that education is part of the solution. That’s why I spent the last year bringing together the diverse voices of some of the United States’ most accomplished teachers, students, and educational researchers to share an optimistic vision of how we can create a flipped American education system in Flip the System US: How Teachers Can Transform Education and Save Democracy. Public education is the foundation of democratic society, and the United States can’t be healthy unless our public schools are. But our survival as a democracy depends on flipping all of our systems - not just education.

When 3 Americans (not 3%) own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the rest of us, and the stock market surges as 40 Million Americans file for unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is obvious that our economic system is not democratic. The American people are being exploited for the benefit of the self-anointed aristocracy. How many Americans will be affected by the economic disaster that is unfolding? How few will benefit from a rallying stock market? How few of those who benefit will be BIPOC, who have been systematically prevented from building generational wealth through racist housing and education policies? 

COVID-19 has exposed the great inequities in our healthcare systems. Black, Hispanic, and Native Americans have been disproportionately affected. Those in the lowest paying jobs have both had less opportunity to transition to much safer remote working and have been most likely to lose their jobs that provided health insurance. Of course, not all of those in poverty are BIPOC, but the systemic economic issues mentioned above have ensured that they are disproportionately represented. 

It’s often mentioned that the path to meaningful change is through voting. And, in a healthy democracy it would be. But, the consolidation of power in our political systems have ensured that each American’s vote is neither equally weighted, nor equally able to be cast. Voter suppression efforts that close polling places in targeted areas, gerrymandering, the egregious influence of money in our political system, and corruption - which has been legalized in many cases to protect the powerful - have all been used to marginalize communities of color and the working class. Everyone who is able must use their vote to demand meaningful change, but we cannot be blind to the fact that flipping of political systems must happen at the same time. 

I have intentionally left our law enforcement systems for last. BIPOC deaths at the hands of police are not isolated events. They are part of interlocking systems of marginalization that lead to power imbalances for entire communities. These deaths are an inevitable outcome when certain members of a society have the systematic agency to wield power over others. Not all police officers are bigoted, but all operate within systems that codify racism - systems that we, as Americans have allowed to perpetuate and erode our democracy. Each of us must own our complicity and commit to action both to repair the damage that has been inflicted and to ensure it stops. 

Democracy is not granted. It is earned. There is no cosmic law that bestows democracy on the American people. If we want to keep it, we must go about doing the work of earning it. And, that work will be hard. All important work is. 

Those who are peacefully protesting right now are doing that work. They need our support. This civic outcry cannot end without positive change, and that change must extend to all of our societal systems.

I will not presume to have solutions to the issues we have with policing in the US. As a straight, white, male, I am about as privileged as one can get. When I’m pulled over I don’t worry about much more than whether I will get a ticket. I can go for a walk in an affluent neighborhood and not be viewed with suspicion. My children have never feared for their lives or those of their family members. 

What I do know is that solutions must be developed, implemented, overseen, and constantly evaluated by the communities that have been most traumatized. That requires those in power and those who look like me to listen, empathize, and be willing to cede some of the power we have in order for others to lead. It’s the only way to stop the cycle we are in. 

If we restore true democratic control of our systems to all the people, rather than a select few, we can prevent American Democracy from being described in future history books as a 250 year failed experiment. Past history has shown us that collective power of the populace can be more powerful than the corrupt few - if the people can come together and demand change. I believe that we can. 

But, the time must be now. Justice cannot wait. Incremental change is prolonged trauma. 

We must unify and act, because the drop from that ledge on which we stand is a death sentence for both our democracy and far too many of our fellow citizens.

Real School Choice

Instead of letting parents choose their students schools, we should be talking about finding ways to give students choices in what and how they learn.

That's school choice that will make a difference.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The former is politically motivated, the latter learning-motivated.

Our reforms won't matter until we start focusing on the people who matter:  individual students. Every student's needs are different.  Every student has different interests that need to be tapped into, talents that need to be developed, and passions that need to be ignited.

Lets start having that conversation, please.

Friday's Five - Assessment: Our Students Deserve Better

I've been thinking a lot about assessment lately.  Not "assessment" in the narrow term meaning the high-stakes tests to which we are forced to subject our students, but assessment in the more global sense: how we determine what our students know and change our teaching to make sure they are learning.  That's what assessment is for, isn't it?  Despite the nonsense that is being thrown around by non-educators about the need to test kids to identify bad schools, bad teachers, bad kids, bad administrators, etc., assessment is really about identifying how we can help kids learn more.  The rest is all political mumbo-jumbo that's hurting our kids because it takes the focus off where it should be - student learning.



There are a few reasons that assessment has been at the forefront of my mind lately.  The most obvious is that the last month of school has been a fragmented mess of teachers struggling to promote real learning in the wake of schedule changes, lost teaching time, and stressed students due to mandatory state "assessments."  I've also spent a lot of time reflecting on my own assessment practices as part of my PAEMST application (one of the more grueling and beneficial experiences I've done as a teacher), which is due on May 1st.  Finally, this is the time of year that we place students into their courses for the next year - a practice that has increasingly become dependent on "data" instead of teacher recommendation.

In order to use assessment properly, to increase student learning, here are five things we need to keep in mind:

1. Use the right tool for the right job.  Often we are told as teachers to "use assessment data to drive instruction."  The problem is that by "assessment data", those making this demand are talking about state assessments, benchmarks, or diagnostics.  You can't make day to day changes that benefit students based on this data.  Learning that one of my students scored low in the "geometry category" five months ago on a state assessment is worthless to me compared with the exit card that showed me that he/she didn't understand that area was a two-dimensional measurement.  The latter allows me to correct the misunderstanding immediately, thus leading to greater learning.
2. I've heard Chris Lehman say before that educational technology should be like oxygen - imperceptible, ubiquitous, and necessary.  The same can be said for assessment.  We need it and should be using it all the time as a way to guide our students, but if our students are stressed about how they are being graded, ranked, sorted, or judged, they aren't focused on learning.  And learning should be our goal. 
3. "Assessment" and "Grading" are not interchangeable terms.  Often they are used that way because we tend to want to make everything measureable.  Data doesn't have to be numbers to be useful.  Again, learning should be our focus, not ranking or judging students.  Tests and quizzes will, for better or worse, always likely have a place in schools.  What is more beneficial for students, though:  giving them a 30 on a quiz in which they got 7 out of 10 questions incorrect, or sitting down with that student to discuss their confusion and helping them identify ways to learn what they haven't yet?  "Grading" is something that is done for the benefit of teachers, parents, colleges, and others.  Good "assessment" is done for students. 
4. Standardized tests, benchmarks, and diagnostic tests are not bad assessments unless we use them in ways for which they were not designed.  When we start using data from a benchmark or diagnostic tests to determine a student's placement in basic or advanced math classes or data from student standardized test scores to judge teacher efficacy and school quality we fail our students.  Arguments that my car got great gas mileage because it goes from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds or that my brother is a great basketball player because he has can punt a football 60 yards would be dismissed as absurd because those aren't valid metrics to use to judge such things.  Why aren't the conclusions we are erroneously drawing from bad metrics in education being dismissed as absurd?  I believe, as Joe Bower put it so well, we can't measure what's important, so we are putting importance on what we can measure.  It needs to stop for the sake of our children.  They deserve better.
5. We need to do a serious cost/benefit analysis of how we assess students.  The assessments that are given the most importance in schools right now are also the most costly in terms of time and money that have ever been given in schools before.  We spend billions of dollars as a country each year on the tests themselves, test prep materials, and resources to meet the logistics of administering the tests.  We spend weeks of time that could be spent on learning critical thinking and innovation demanding that kids learn test taking skills and low-level thinking facts so that they can pass the tests.  And what do we get?  Lousy data.  Data that is far, far inferior to the formative assessment data I could have collected in much less time and that could have been used immediately to teach students. 

Some will say, "but scores have gone up since we started testing kids, so there must be some benefit to all this testing."  While scores on state tests have gone up, this argument is totally false.  We, the public are being manipulated.  Politicians have made the tests easier over the years to show how wonderful they (the politicians) are at "improving education."  Anyone who has compared state tests from 7 or 8 years ago to current tests can see this easily.  Our students score almost exactly the same on international tests as they did before we implemented high-stakes testing.  We've spent trillions of dollars and countless hours of time that could have been spent on real learning for nothing.  Actually, it hasn't been for nothing.  We've spent it to make politicians look good and to help their buddies who own stock in companies that produce testing materials make a buck.  We could have gotten so much more for so much less.  Maybe it's time to let educators determine how to educate our kids. 

Friday's Five - Influencing Political Change

Many people, including teachers, are turned off by politics.  It's understandable.  Lately it seems that every candidate is bought by corporation and special interest money, and is more interested in following their party's line than doing what's best for the country.

Image Credit: nyaltnews.com

With Pennsylvania's primary approaching next week, I've been thinking of how our students have increasingly been hurt by politicians who further their agendas in the name of "educational reform", and what options we have as educators to change that trend.  After all, if we are so fed up with politics that we avoid the process, who will advocate for real education reform?  Here are five suggestions for getting involved.

1. Check the voting record of both your state and federal representatives and senators.  Just because someone claims that they are have supported education doesn't mean that they really have.  After all, those cutting funding, firing teachers, mandating endless student testing without educational benefit, and creating unfunded mandates for our schools are claiming that all make education better.  A simple Google search with your representatives name and "voting record" will probably get you what you need.
2. Do research for yourself instead of blindly following the advice of others.  Teachers unions and organizations will undoubtedly be happy to tell you for whom you should vote.  Don't be a sheep being led blindly.  Research the candidates to make sure they actually believe in the same things you do.
3. Follow the money.  If you know what corporations, individuals, and organizations are donating big money to a candidate, you have a pretty good idea of what policies they are likely to support.
4. Prioritize education.  If we as teachers don't vote based on what candidates are likely to do right by our students and schools, should we really be surprised that others don't either?
5. Spread the word.  If you find a candidate who you really believe is going to make a difference, share that knowledge with everyone you know.  Blog about it, campaign for them, talk about it in the faculty room.  If there isn't a candidate you can support, spread the word about the issues that matter.  Tell the world how harmful certain policies are to your students.  Blog about positive reforms you like to see.  Your voice is louder and more influential than you think.  Use it for good!

The Supercommittee: 21st Century Ineptitude Exemplified

Yesterday, the "Supercomittee" in the United States Congress, charged with decreasing the country's deficit and debt made this announcement:

After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline.

At a time when those in education and business are striving to promote the 21st century skills of critical thinking, collaboration, effective communication, and innovation, has there ever been a group lacking in those skills more than the politicians we have elected to run our country?  They can't communicate or collaborate with each other.  They haven't been innovative or come up with any new ideas in the past decade.  It's painfully obvious that critical thinking and the ability to problem solve are non-existent.

J. Scott Applewhite - AP

Is it any wonder that the education laws and policies set forth by these people drive the 21st century skills out of our students?   Should we be shocked that our schools are forced to teach to a test that destroys critical thinking and innovation?  Are we really surprised that the preparation schools must do for that test makes teaching collaboration and effective communication of little importance?

What I'm baffled by is the fact that citizens of this country continue to allow those who are clearly unable to handle the complexities of the 21st century to continue to dictate how our children should be educated.  It's bad enough that they've made a mess of things for themselves.  They need to stop trying to mess it up for my children and students as well.

The Wrong Direction



Photo Credit: SpreadTheMagic, Flickr

This morning, at 8:56 AM EDT, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Endeavor into orbit.  In July, NASA will launch Atlantis with four astronauts to the International Space Station.  After that, NASA will retire the shuttle fleet.  They are replacing it with nothing.

Instead, the United States will pay Russia over $50 million per astronaut to carry Americans round trip to the International Space Station.

In the 1950's and 1960's, the United States was faced with an educational crisis.  The Soviet Union had launched Sputnik, and Americans feared that the United States was on the verge of losing its grip as the world's superpower.  That fear led to the National Defense Education Act of 1958.  It led to education programs that were designed to foster a new generation of engineers.  It led to an increased focus on science and math in schools.  Money was earmarked for education, science, and research & development.  NASA was created.

A decade later there were Americans walking on the moon, a scientific achievement that no civilization before or since has been able to achieve.

Today, the United States has another educational crisis. In every study that's been done comparing the United States to other countries in science and math, we finish in the middle of the pack.  I referenced one of them in a blog post last week - the 2007 TIMSS Study.  We have fallen so far that we either cannot develop the technology to send our own astronauts into space, or we have lost the motivation.  Either way, the country that was built on scientific achievement, innovation, and invention is stagnating.

And what is the response?  How are we trying to improve education and technology to overcome this latest crisis? 

By cutting funding to education and firing teachers in record numbers.  By paying other governments to bring our astronauts into space. 

Instead of getting the best mathematicians and engineers to foster a new generation of innovators, a math/engineering teacher is the lowest paid profession out of all mathematics based professions.  You're not going to attract a lot of talent that way.  As a matter of fact, nearly a quarter of this year's Presidential Awards for Excellence in Math and Science will go unclaimed.



Image Source:  indeed.com



Instead of focusing on innovation, we focus on getting our students to master low-order thinking questions and fill in bubbles on standardized tests that are focused on evaluating teachers, not student learning.  Partially as a result, for the first time in 2009, more patents filed in the US Patent office went to foreigners than Americans. 

Instead of pooling the collective will of science, industry, government, and education to become great, we are floundering. 

In the 1950's and 1960's we made a commitment to education, innovation, and greatness.  We put a man on the moon in a decade.

If we keep on our current path, where will we be in a decade?

What's the Purpose of Public Education?

What's the purpose of education in America?

It seems like such an easy question.  It seems like it should have an obvious, straightforward answer.

When the country was formed Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson argued that we should have free public education because our democracy depended on it.  We needed to have an educated electorate in order for people to make wise choices when they exercise their right to vote.

Yet in order to "improve education" in the past decade we have cut the amount of civics, history, and social studies we teach our students in order to teach more math and reading.

Businesses claim the purpose of education is to develop qualified workers so that our economy can grow.  Better educated workers result in better productivity for the businesses, better profits, and more money for everybody.

Yet, despite the fact that our most successful entrepreneurs were amazingly innovative and every business is looking for creative thinkers, we have made our classrooms devoid of innovation and creativity in order that our students are prepared to pass high-stakes standardized tests.

Parents and communities claim that it is our job to feed children breakfast, teach morals and responsibility, provide after-school activities and athletic programs, transport children to and from school,  prevent bullying in-school and on the internet, and counsel students who are in crisis.

Yet, school funding is being cut, and schools are being prevented from raising the tax revenue they need to accomplish all of these tasks.

Some claim that public schools should be a way for the poor to develop the skills and knowledge needed  to become economically successful in life.

Yet we are one of only a handful of industrialized nations in the world that provides the least amount of money to schools that need it most, and an abundance of money to schools in affluent areas.

Politicians are trying to sell us on many different magic bullet fixes to education right now:  Vouchers, alternative teacher certification, charter schools, small class size, eliminating tenure, etc.

None of them matter.  We can't begin to develop a good public education system until we identify the purpose of public education.  That's the discussion we need to be having.  What do we want from our schools?  What do we need as a country?

Once we do that, we can start to figure out how to build a great public education system that meets those needs.

Until that happens, it's just a bunch of political nonsense being tossed around to get politicians elected.