Celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day!

Please join me in celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day today.

The official Federal Holiday that has allowed my Beloved to be home today is Columbus Day. Traditionally, it's been celebrated as an Italian-American ethnic celebration, and I heartily believe that Italian-Americans have good reason to be proud of their heritage.

But as anyone who reads this blog regularly is aware, I have serious problems with the idea of making Christopher Columbus the hero of anything. So while I uplift the idea of Italian pride, I'll be celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day today.

I support pride in Italian heritage--but definitely not the glorification of Christopher Columbus, whose arrival sparked a rolling disaster throughout the Americas.

The "Columbian Exchange" created disruption all over the world, some of it positive and some of it negative. There's a strong argument to be made that while it benefitted much of Europe, its effects on the so-called "New World" of the Americas, and ultimately on Africa (especially via colonialism and the slave trade) and the rest of the world were not so benign. It could even be called a disaster for the 90% of indigenous Americans who died from plague after plague for which their immune systems were unprepared.

It was enormously consequential--but it's been egregiously misrepresented in school curricula for literal centuries, although many teachers have begun to grapple with the gaps in the traditional narrative. Still today, however, this information from Scholastic is representative of the kind of things being taught.

It's time to push for a more complete view of history, and more balanced representation. It does need to take root in schools, certainly. But if it's only confined to schools we'll have a "diversity backlash." Some people persist in seeing the narrative of a dominant monoculture as the "most important" part, while anything else is just political correctness run amok.

We have enough of that kind of thinking already. Countering it is a long, slow process, but for me it will include persistently celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day.

IMAGE CREDITS: Many thanks to "World of Wellesley" from Wellesley, MA, for the Indigenous Peoples Day design; to Freedonia State University of New York for the "Columbus Day X-out" image; and to Illuminatives for the infographic about Native American representation in the school curricula of the United States.

3-D Printers at School?

Ever since I first learned of them, I've been fascinated with 3-D printers.  Cutting-edge applications for this technology have been proposed or are in development for everything from printing prosthetic ears with living cartilage cells, to printing buildings for a moon base.

But 3-D printers are high-tech and hideously expensive (even $1,200-$1,500 is REALLY steep for your average public school!).  Could they have a use in schools?  The folks at OnlineDegrees.Org think so.  They've prepared a graphic to explain their ideas.  Here's part of it:

Some seem like little more than gimmicks (coughs: Jell-o molds), though I could be all wrong about chef-training for the avant garde world of future gastronomy, which can start in high school.

The truth is, we don't know all the ways that this amazing new technology can or will be used--who predicted the ability to print a plastic gun that fires real bullets?  Yet they are now a reality. 

Because they are clearly an important and rapidly-expanding part of our future, they most definitely belong in schools.  But if we're still "teaching like it's 1980" how can we meet that challenge?  And with lawmakers cutting education budgets right and left, a fancy newfangled gizmo that costs--holy smokes! One to two grand?!?--get real.

Actually, "real" is what we truly must get, as in welcome to the real world--where evolution keeps happening every day, the climate really is changing dramatically, and new technology is not just coming, but already here.

Are we preparing the kids?

School Funding Myth #1: Money doesn't buy a good education

Recently, I wrote about the ways in which basing school funding on property values in the United States makes it near-certain that schools will be funded inequitably. Placing decision-making about school funding in the hands of a patchwork of state and local governments simply increases that certainty.

At this point in the discussion, people often will bring up some predictable objections to any implication that the funding of US schools might be inadequate or ill-advised.

The first one I normally encounter is the one that says, Money doesn’tnecessarily buy a good education.

This is undoubtedly true in some cases—and unfortunately one need look no farther than the Kansas City, MO School District for a glaring, recent example of this precept. In the latter part of the 20^th century, the KCMO district went through aprotracted desegregation lawsuit. At the end of this case, it reaped a windfallsettlement of massive proportions, which it proceeded to waste in spectacular fashion.

Kansas City's East High School had to close early several
times in August, because it has no air conditioning.

With all its newfound wealth, it decided to replace several of its aging, dilapidated schools with new, modern, state-of-the-art buildings. However, very little of this money seemed to go for anything else. Not teacher salaries. Not curricular materials of any substance. And not even all buildings were treated equally. Just last month, two schools in the district had to close early on hot days, because they still aren’t air-conditioned!

No, money and wisdom do not necessarily go hand-in-hand! That said, however, it isextremely difficult to offer a first-class education when you only havesecond-or third-class funding. 

Here are some examples of why this is so:

At some point, even the best teacher
can be overwhelmed by class size.

Class size: There are people who will hotly argue over how much of a difference class size makes, claiming a good teacher is much more important than class size for student outcomes. I certainly will agree that if you have to focus on only one of those, teacher quality is the one to choose. 

But I guarantee you'll get better teaching from any teacher alive, if s/he is not trying to give individualized attention to 40 or 50 students all at once--especially when some of those students don't want to be there or pay attention! 

Technology costs are a burden for nearly any public school.

Technology: Staying current with technology is challenging enough for many businesses, but it is a perennial headache for schools--most especially for schools in poorer districts! I have written elsewhere about the antiquated computers at one of the urban schools where I have taught--but that school was typical. 

A frequent complaint of the business community is that schools are not adequately preparing students with the skills they need to succeed in the business world. Certainly basic math, science, and writing skills are important aspects of that gap--but knowledge of computer skills also is essential. 

The "digital divide" is a direct result of access to resources.

The "digital divide" between richer and poorer schools is often painfully obvious. However, in my experience even some of the more well-to-do public school districts may find keeping up with technology's costs to be a continual challenge when the state funding is cut year after year.

Other Curriculum Materials and Equipment: Technology isn't the only thing that costs money. Traditional, paper-based books keep going up in price--especially textbooks. So are many other types of necessary school equipment. For example, have you ever priced library-quality equipment of any kind? 

One of the traditional complaints of the old, pre-Brown v. Board of Education segregated schools was that the black kids got old, torn-up school books after the white kids were done with them. We like to think we are better off now (though in too many cases we've made way less progress than we want to believe). But then as now, the price tag for high-quality educational materials is more than some schools can afford. 

Field trips can open kids' eyes to the world in unique
and powerful ways--IF their school can afford it.

Field Trips: Transportation and other expenses, such as hiring substitutes for the teachers on the trip (when not all of their students may be able to go) make school field trips an expensive proposition. Some schools simply don't have them anymore. Others have dramatically cut back on them.

Museums, zoos, and similar institutions have had to shoulder an increasing share of the costs involved, but both they and schools have felt the pinch of restricted funding, especially since the beginning of the recession. 

The "informal learning" offered by field trips, even though it is shown by many studies to be powerful and inspiring, is less and less available where funds are restricted.

Two other areas, building maintenance and teacher compensation, also come with hefty price tags. All too often, this means buildings in poorer districts go unrepaired indefinitely, and teachers are not paid adequately. These are topics worthy of much more space than I have left for this post--but I hope I have made my point.

More money may not always "buy" good education, but it certainly increases the odds that it can happen! And there are minimum levels below which we slash educational budgets at our peril.

PHOTO CREDITS: The school funding graphic is from the website Krug for Wisconsin. KMBC-TV provided the image of the overheated East High School in Kansas City, MO. The cartoon on class size is from  Choccy's Blog on Libcom.org. The Cult of Mac blog provided the iPad-with-dollar-signs image. The "digital divide" image is courtesy of the Bridging the Digital Divide with Online Education blog. And the field trip photo is from the City of Gresham, OR website. MANY THANKS to all of them!

Who Should Control School Funding?

Throughout the United States, a battle has been raging over school funding and reform for decades—but the Great Recession has opened a new dimension in the struggle.

Cash-strapped states have been slashing school funding year after year, continuing an effort begun by “small government” forces, now joined by “deficit hawks.” Recently, every new legislative session brings another epic battle, in which it seems the best a district can hope for is not to lose as much ground as last year.

Blue Valley West High School is in an affluent suburb of
Johnson County, KS, where school patrons are willing to tax
themselves sacrificially if necessary, to fund their schools.

All the same, some localities—such as Johnson County, KS, where I live—have resisted this trend as fiercely as they can. Johnson Countians have a long history of repeatedly raising their own taxes—even during the current economic situation—to strengthen funding for our schools. We’re lucky we can afford to do this, because not all districts are able.

We understandably resent and resist any effort to hold us back from more fully funding our schools—yet this is exactly how funding disparities widen between “have” and “have not” schools. When public schools were being set up in the 19^th century, the norms of the day and primitive communications led to the natural outcome that schools were funded by local property taxes, and governed locally. And it has stayed that way.

Unfortunately, we now have such an inequitable system that it probably should be ruled unconstitutional. 

Yet Heaven help anyone today who dares to suggest that US school funding should not be sourced and controlled locally! That is especially true in a relatively affluent area where parents clearly understand the value of a good education, but don’t necessarily trust centralized government to make good school decisions!

Educational innovations such as those practiced at this
school for 7-to-16-year-olds in Espoo, Finland, are proving
difficult to "transfer" to the United States.

This presents a real conundrum for reformers, because pretty much all of the countries with students scoring better than ours seem to be run on centralized systems. 

In top-rated Finland, for example, a central government agency controls the schools, mandates a centralized curriculum and educational approach; funds all schools, regardless of neighborhood, at relatively generous and equitable levels; and pays (not to mention respects) teachers more highly than in the US. How do we apply successful methods from the rest of the world, without changing this "central" aspect?

Indeed, for jealously protective parents who don’t want “outside bureaucrats” meddling with their kids’ schools, the reaction has often been the exact opposite of greater centralization. 

Instead, the cry of “school choice!” has gone up in various districts. This has led to an explosion in the number of homeschoolers, charter schools, and an assortment of voucher systems since the early 1990s. More recently, it also has led to a rise in “virtual” school districts offering courses online.

This water-damaged school in Newark, NJ--with no funds for
repairs--provides a cautionary lesson about too much austerity. 

Some parents who seek greater school choice want to flee crumbling inner city districts, which they—often with justification—see as dangerous places with more focus on crowd control than on nurturing children’s learning. 

Some religiously observant parents fear secular influences may alienate their children from their faith. 

Others resist integration, or disagree with curriculum mandates, or dislike placing their children in a “class-based” system that demands all children must learn the same things, at the same ages, and on the same timetable, no matter what their gifting or challenges may be.

Not all motivations are equally high-minded, but nearly all of those listed above spring from parental concern over what, how, and under what conditions their children are being taught. Parental concerns and a deep American respect for individuality are part of the forces that keep the "centralizers" at bay.

They are not the only interests that must be considered in reform efforts, however. 

Also influential in decisions made at all levels are the business interests of large companies in what has come to be called the "education-industrial complex" (test publishers and scorers, textbook and educational materials publishers, for-profit school management corporations, and many others have increasingly profited from contracts to provide school products and services).

Add to them the extremely well-funded ideologues who have begun to play such a massive role in US politics, and the politicians who depend on them for never-ending campaign financing needs. 

There also are numerous philanthropic foundations, academics, writers, think-tanks, teachers' unions, teacher-education institutions, and other voices. 

All have points to make, concerns to protect, and all too often axes to grind, because the one who controls the funding gets to have the final say—and in the clearly-failing US schools, a perilous future for all of us is riding in the balance.

PHOTO CREDITS: I took the photo of Blue Valley South High School in southern Johnson County, KS, in February 2007. It is © 2007 by Jan S. Gephardt, and may be used with attribution, but no alterations. The second photo shows a school in Espoo, Finland; 2012 photo by Tuomas Uusheimofor the book, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? By Pasi Sahlberg. The 2011 photo of the New Jersey school is by Tony Kurdzuk of the New Jersey Star-Ledger.