An inventory of the distractions from 'willing one thing' in education constitutes almost an encyclopedia of contemporary educational practice.
No Child Left Behind, the federal government's 'song that never ends', is a disaster. It has produced so little that its staunchest defenders are reduced to claiming that its value lies in the fact that it forced us to notice that some kids weren't learning. Anyone who needed federal assistance in order to detect an achievement gap should never have been involved in education in the first place. Those who insist that the law 'shined a light' on a previously undetected problem are admitting to unimaginable incompetence.
At the state level, singing back-up to NCLB and the dollars that it brings, we have the Oregon Department of Education and the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission. They are responsible for compliance...regardless of the consequences. Can a person enforce compliance while fostering real reform? Only if reform consists in being ever more compliant. The paperwork is a distraction.
In the private sector we have OEA, COSA, OSBA, The Chalkboard Project...all fine organizations in their own rights and all firm in their commitments to children, but all acting as conservative bullwarks (yes, the OEA is a powerful conservative force) defending the status quo against all comers and sponsoring or endorsing dozens of distractions from the central work of educating students. All advocate 'improvement' and endorse programs and professional development strategies, so long as improvement doesn't negatively impact their memberships or benefactors. And they don't hesitate to advocate statewide initiatives that play out very differently depending on the size, location and circumstances of each district. They tend to be advocates of a 'one size fits all' philosophy. They thrive on homogeneity.
The Publishing and Professional Development industries are in the unique circumstance of having to sell 'revolutionary' new products, year after year, while ensuring that nothing changes (let alone 'revolves') in such a way as to impact their profit margins. Reading First, Response to Intervention, Professional Learning Communities, Advancement Via Individual Determination, Pre-AP, Strategic Planning, Servant Leadership, the Ninety-Seven Secret Habits of Barely Solvent Businesses...(O.K., I made that last one up). What I'm not making up is that new, revolutionary products and strategies are unveiled each year and they promise to produce better, more research-based results than did last year's product which we bought and have now discarded. The same publisher that has energetically marketed a reading program for decades will announce, with a straight face, that its new program is 'completely revised'! Really? Is that because reading changed? Do I get money back on the old, apparently useless program? No. Oh, and don't forget to budget for us to train your teachers in the intricacies of implementation.
Leonard Cohen probably didn't have the education community in mind when he wrote:
'I bite my lip
I buy what I'm told,
From the latest hits
To the wisdom of old'
Merit pay, an end to teacher tenure, mandatory mentoring programs, an end to social promotions, the standards movement, the list seems never to end. We educators chase every fad that comes along and take deep offense at anyone who suggests that the new emperor is no better dressed than was the fabled one. We are so gullible that when the glitter gets thick beyond all credibility, we can be sold a 'back to basics' movement that simply dusts off the programs (but adds new price stickers) that were discarded a decade or two ago in order to make way for what was then a 'new, innovative, scientific' approach. We need to stop.
Is this all of the distractions? No. Just a first attempt at describing how easily we are distracted. Can we eliminate the distractions one and a time and find the heart of the educational enterprise in what is left at the end of the process? I suspect not. I imagine that we are going to have to locate our educational identity first, as the only defense against the next new, scientifically based, federally endorsed, state mandated shiny waste of time and money that comes along.
More to follow. Or precede. I don't really understand how blogs work.
