Education

Charter Schools: Innovation or Amnesia?

by Nancy Beadie

UPDATE: As of 9:40 Eastern 11/7, Initiative 1240 has a slim lead in Washington State. Rally against Initiative 1240 in Washington State. Credit: People for Our Public Schools. Proponents of charter school initiatives throughout the country portray public education as a stagnant vision wedded to the status quo. But in fact truly public education -- education for everyone, by everyone -- is the product of continual struggle that took generations to create. Before adopting a provision that significantly weakens the public's control of education, voters should remember why states established strong public control of education in the first place.

Going Beyond the Bubble: Stanford’s New Approach to History Assessments

by Kelsey McKernie

Credit: http://beyondthebubble.stanford.edu/History can be a difficult subject to assess at a pre-college level. Multiple choice questions (MCQs) are quick and easy to administer, but do not always provide an accurate reflection of a student’s understanding of the historical subject. At the other end of the spectrum, the document-based questions (DBQs) used in AP History exams, can be too advanced for students unfamiliar with the analysis of primary documents, and are time-consuming to administer.

Romney's and Obama's Competing Visions for Higher Education

by Michael David Cohen

The University of Missouri campus in the early 1900s. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.In their two presidential debates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have devoted several minutes to discussing K-12 education. They agreed on the need for a federal role, including at least some elements of Obama’s Race to the Top program, but disagreed on whether to distribute federal funds to states or, as Romney proposed as a way to promote school choice, to individual students. But beyond brief references to the value of community colleges, the challenge of paying tuition, and the difficulty of finding jobs after graduation, the candidates said little about higher education.

Back to $chool

by Andy Kroll

UC Berkeley campus. Credit: Flickr/brainchildvn.It was the greatest education system the world had ever seen. They built it into the eucalyptus-dotted Berkeley hills and under the bright lights of Los Angeles, down in the valley in Fresno and in the shadows of the San Bernardino Mountains. Hundreds of college campuses, large and small, two-year and four-year, stretching from California's emerald forests in the north to the heat-scorched Inland Empire in the south. Each had its own DNA, but common to all was this: they promised a “public” education, accessible and affordable, to those with means and those without, a door with a welcome mat into the ivory tower, an invitation to a better life.

Chicago Teachers Strike a Blow Against Testing

by Ronald W. Evans

Teachers marching in the streets of Chicago on September 10. Credit: Flickr/sbcthemuse.Chicago teachers went out on strike last Monday, and a key reason for the impasse has to do with accountability reform. The Chicago teachers union said no to a “reform” that would base 30 percent of a teachers’ evaluation on student test scores. With the nation running full speed ahead on school accountability reform, and various districts and states moving toward linking student test scores to the job evaluations of teachers and administrators, Chicago teachers took a stand.

The Oldest University Buildings in America

by David Austin Walsh

Get the Slideshow Creator Pro widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)With Labor Day behind us and autumn in the air (okay, it's in the 70s and 80s in most parts of the country today, but bear with me), college students everywhere are returning to campuses. While schools in the United States cannot compete with European universities when it comes to the ancientness of their campuses (Oxford University's oldest building dates back to 1320 -- it is now, oddly enough, a cafe), the oldest American universities boast halls and dormitories that easily pre-date independence.

Richard Levin Leaves Behind a Mixed Legacy at Yale

by Jim Sleeper

Richard Levin speaking at the India Economic Summit in 2008. Credit: World Economic Forum/Flickr."I think the faculty want me out," Yale President Richard Levin told an emeritus professor glumly last spring after a faculty vote of "no confidence" in his and his trustees' move to establish a new liberal-arts college, bearing Yale's name, in collaboration with the authoritarian, corporate city-state of Singapore.Levin's announcement last week that he'll resign effective in June -- and Fareed Zakaria's resignation as a Yale trustee only two weeks earlier -- were indeed driven partly by growing faculty resistance to the "world is flat" corporate expansion of American universities that both men championed. But what now, and what kind of leadership should succeed them?Not so subtly, the liberal arts at Yale are being reinvented "from the ground up," as one Yale publication put it -- instrumentalized, I fear, not only to benefit Asia's future capitalist leaders but also in a "parallel university" that has been emerging at Yale itself outside of the faculty's deliberation and control.

Message To Teachers at the Start of a New School Year

by Mark Naison

Teacher and students. Credit: Wikipedia.The start of a new school year is normally an exciting time. Teachers are busy decorating their classrooms, preparing their lessons, reconnecting with colleagues, and imagining what they are going to say that first day when they meet their students.

Education Under Siege

by Caroline V. Hamilton

Campus of the Humboldt University of Berlin, 1938. Credit: German Federal ArchivesOn March 11, 1939, reporter Ralph Barnes cabled an article from Berlin to the Washington Post. It appeared under the following headlines:Nazification Robs German Universities of World Reputation: Anti-Intellectualism Now Popular in Reich and Once Proud Schools Must Suffer Interference from Political LeadersSound familiar? Are we not facing a similar situation now? Once proud American universities are suffering funding cuts and verbal abuse from extremist politicians and pundits. New bills pending in the Pennsylvania legislature, for example, threaten to impose a “job-ready major evaluation advisory committee,” abolish paid sabbaticals (when tenure-track faculty recharge their intellectual batteries and produce new work), and interfere with department assignments of teaching hours.

Why Business Leaders Make a Mess When They Are Put in Charge of Schools

by Mark Naison

Every time I have a conversation with someone who has been successful in business -- something that happens more than you might think because I play tennis and golf -- it strikes me they have no understanding of what motivates a teacher. As people who have marked their own success in life through the accumulation of income, investments, and property, they find it hard to respect people whose personal satisfaction comes largely from non-material rewards. They think it odd that a person as competitive as I am on the court could possibly devote myself to a field which has no chance of making me rich. They look on most teachers and professors with a bemused contempt -- I only get an exemption from it because of my sports skills.This is why it is frightening that business leaders have taken charge of education in the United States, because the only things they take seriously as motivation are material rewards and fear of losing one's job or business. They are convinced that schools in the U.S. can only be improved if a business-style reward-and-punishment system is given primacy. They love the idea of performance evaluation based on hard data (with student test scores being the equivalent of sales figures and/or profits), of merit increments for those who succeed, and the removal of those who fail.

Lessons *Not* Learned by the University of Virginia

by Michael H. Ebner

The Rotunda at the University of Virginia. Credit: WikipediaI have bonds of affection -- and immense gratitude -- for my education at the University of Virginia. Inspired faculty members prepared me for a lifetime of teaching as well as writing American history. William H. Harbaugh, Maurice J. Meisner, Merrill D. Peterson, and Willie Lee Rose instantly come to mind. It was there that I taught my very first classes -- US Survey I -- as a lowly teaching assistant. I also formed friendships among my fellow graduate students that endure to this very day.Reflecting back over forty-eight years since I first set foot on the grounds, I recall my good fortune frequently and fondly. The University of Virginia fortified me for what evolved into a rewarding career teaching and writing American history at the City University of New York, at Lake Forest College, and as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago.

Does Common Core Encourage War?

by Alan Singer

At the end of May, the Obama administration granted eight states, including New York, waivers from Bush-era No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education mandates. The waivers were necessary because a highly partisan Congress would not mend the law and because it is now clear that it is impossible for every child, no matter what their circumstances, to achieve at the top level in every subject. Lyndon Johnson could have made any rule he wanted to in the 1960s, but there was no way I was going to learn to speak French, study for chemistry, or carry a tune. Nineteen states have been granted waivers already and more are in the pipeline. 

What is Lost When Teaching as a Lifetime Calling is Undermined

by Mark Naison

Today teachers, from elementary school through the university, are the targets of a ferocious effort to force them to conform to private-sector norms of accountability, productivity, and market-driven competition. The assault takes two major forms -- an effort to quantify student learning so that teacher effectiveness can be easily judged, and an effort to weaken or eliminate teacher tenure so that teachers can be removed, or rewarded, based on their effectiveness. The goal of these reforms is to have teachers work under conditions which more closely resemble those of workers in the private sector and to place them under fierce and continuous pressure to improve their productivity. The underlying assumption is that our educational system is expensive and inefficient, undermining the competitiveness of the American economy in the global marketplace

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What Would Ben Franklin Think?

by Caroline V. Hamilton

The founders and framers had numerous, often scathing disagreements -- about slavery, the scope of federal and state power, standing armies, and foreign policy -- but they agreed on one thing: the necessity of a well-educated citizenry. Yet politicians who claim to revere the founders are in the process of dismantling public education, state by state. This is particularly true of Pennsylvania. As the axe of Governor Tom Corbett’s budget hangs over the bared neck of Pennsylvania public education, we would do well to review the history we claim to admire.What would Benjamin Franklin think of Corbett’s assault on public education? It’s not hard to find out Franklin’s views on education; his papers are posted online at franklinpapers.org. Well before the Revolution, in 1749, he wrote a pamphlet entitled Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania. There he declared:

Beware the Education–Industrial Complex

by Alan Singer

Sometimes we can learn lessons from history–if we are paying attention.In January 1961, as he completed his second and final term as President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower gave a farewell address to the nation. It was a remarkable and prescient speech in many ways, especially given that Eisenhower was a West Point graduate, a retired five-star general, a military hero in command of all Allied troops in Western Europe during World War II, and personally a very conservative man.In the speech, Eisenhower warned the American people of the growing power of a “military-industrial complex,” an alliance of the military with defense contractors that he saw as a threat to democracy.Democracy in the United States is now under a similar assault from an education-foundation-political-industrial complex. This complex takes many forms, but its primary goal is to shape state and federal educational policy in a way that maximizes private corporate profits.

The Tragic Lost Opportunity of School Reform

by Ronald W. Evans

I worry about my children. As a father, teacher, educator, and educational historian, I have a special window on what’s going on in schools. I worry about their social studies curriculum, or the lack of one. When history is taught, it seems students face an endless diet of worksheets and testing fueled by textbook-driven memorization. The problem is exacerbated by current trends in school reform. Most of what I observe, through dinner table discussions, helping with homework, and visiting classrooms, is a test-driven race through the textbook.