Wellford Wilms: On Taking Back Our Schools

Every once in a while I'm heartened that the world still has witnesses enough with the courage to question what's happening to our children. This article is significant reading - words not heard often or loud enough.

Over the last 25 years, education in general has been taken from ordinary citizens and teachers by politicians, administrators, union leaders, publishers, test makers, consultants, university professors, hardware and software developers and the media, each playing its part in keeping alive the illusion of reform. All in all, this $1-trillion industry has replaced the common interest, and no one, it seems, can muster the will to rein it in.

Local control is only a dim memory. Decisions now come from the top—from the federal and state governments, school boards and high-level administrators who have little knowledge of what goes on in the classroom. Teachers are left out of these decisions, carrying on the best they can, safe in the assumption that the newest fad, like those before it, will blow over. Parents are all but forgotten.

While command-and-control management may seem to produce results in the short run, it strips schools of the capacity to develop the stable leadership that is necessary to sustain success. Principals are besieged with demands from district offices and from the educational fads that emanate from publishers and university researchers. Many principals know that they put their careers in peril unless they do what their bosses want. One elementary school principal told me, “District directives undermine our own abilities to think for ourselves, to believe in what we see and know.” When schools discover something that works, it is rarely sustained because they lack authority or stable leadership.

If you care about education, click on the link and read the entire piece. It is well worth your while.

More Federal Interference Coming to a School Near You

In today's edition of the New York Times, yet another stealth Bush administration initiative to indirectly control high school curriculums is in the pipeline. According to the article, the Democrats have not been consulted nor have they participated in the drafting of this legislation. Nor, apparently has the professional eduvcation community been offered a chance to debate the constitutionality or merits of this legislation. The selected snippets are offered to encourage you to read the article in its entirety (Click the title).

If it smells like Soviet-style social engineering...

January 22, 2006
College Aid Plan Widens U.S. Role in High Schools
By SAM DILLON

"When Republican senators quietly tucked a major new student aid program into the 774-page budget bill last month, they not only approved a five-year, $3.75 billion initiative. They also set up what could be an important shift in American education: for the first time the federal government will rate the academic rigor of the nation's 18,000 high schools.

The measure, backed by the Bush administration and expected to pass the House when it returns next month, would provide $750 to $1,300 grants to low-income college freshmen and sophomores who have completed "a rigorous secondary school program of study" and larger amounts to juniors and seniors majoring in math, science and other critical fields."

and...

"The Constitution outlines no role for the federal government in education, and local control of schools is a cornerstone of the American system. But Washington's role has grown since Congress began financing college studies for World War II veterans. Several laws increased federal aid to education, including the landmark National Defense Act of 1958, but specifically prohibited federal officials from assuming supervision or control over programs of instruction. And while President Bush's education law, No Child Left Behind, imposed mandatory testing, it allowed the states to choose their own tests.

Like the No Child Left Behind law, the new grants are largely an effort to take a Texas idea nationwide. The legislation is modeled on the Texas Scholars program, begun during Mr. Bush's governorship, which enlisted certain Texas high schools and encouraged their students to take a "rigorous course of study," defined to include four years of English; three and a half years of social studies; two years of foreign language; and a year each of algebra, geometry, advanced algebra, biology, chemistry and physics."

...and...

"The new one-year grants, designed to supplement the broader, $13 billion Pell Grant program, range from $750 for low-income college freshmen and $1,300 for sophomores to $4,000 for juniors and seniors who are pursuing majors in the physical, life or computer sciences, mathematics, technology, engineering or certain foreign languages. Applicants must have a 3.0 grade point average to be eligible as sophomores, juniors and seniors.

The administration's original proposal would have been simple to administer. But under the proposal approved by the Senate, Department of Education officials would need to scrutinize high school courses of study and discuss curricular matters with local officials to a degree that Washington officials never have."

...and (this is important)...

"Even in states like New Jersey and Connecticut, where the State Scholars program is operating, however, it may be politically awkward for federal officials to declare programs of study at a few high schools to be rigorous while withholding that designation from others, educators said. In New Jersey, for instance, just 35 of 300 high schools participate in State Scholars. In Connecticut, 4 of 180 public high schools participate.

Another problem is that private school operators believe that the legislation renders their graduates ineligible by saying applicants must have completed a "program of study established by a state or local educational agency and recognized by the secretary." The bill "would inadvertently exclude over 5.3 million private K-12 school students," the National Association of Independent Schools, which represents some 1,200 private schools, said in a letter to senators last month. The same legislative language may also exclude parochial and home-schooled students."

Jimmy Carter on local autonomy and fiscal responsibility:

If you read only one editorial piece this week make it the LA Times pice by Jimmy Carter. He speaks eloquently for all of us who are concerned with the health and choices our country is making.

This isn't the real America
By Jimmy Carter

"IN RECENT YEARS, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility."

Carter goes on to mention national issues but this is a clarion call to regional activists and administrators to begin investigating ways to restore local control away from a federal administration gone mad.

We need no more federal education mandates.

The same politicians who lost the war on poverty and drugs, who botched education reform, fiscal responsibility, FEMA and Homeland Security and so on need to shut up and get out of the driver's seat or hand everyone a travel sickness bag. We've seen and heard enough to know we can do better locally. They should have never been promoted and they are an embarassment to children who are taught to depend on government for fair and effective policy.

We all know they won't willfully go away so it is the responsibility of students, teachers, parents, and citizens to remind them of what we expect and we should settle for nothing less than the finest example of democacy, justice, and hope we can offer each other and the world as a nation.

If kids and parents are going to be deafened by lectures from politicians about accountability and responsibility then turnabout is fair play.