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.

Classrooms of the Future

What will the “classroom of the future” look like?

Anyone who is interested in educational reform probably comes around to that question sooner or later, and there are many different visions.

Cartoonist Signe Wilkinson, of the Philadelphia Daily News, gives us a
look at one possible result of ever-increasing cuts to school budgets.

Our technology, our understanding of child development, and our mandated necessity to teach all children in public schools suggest some directions, including making classrooms more accessible to differently-abled children. Growing pressure from tax-cutting state legislatures to reduce costs suggest other potential courses of action.

This West London classroom structure was designed by
Ludic Productions to facilitate a self-directed learning
experience, using new technology.

Some districts have focused on increasing class sizes or reducing course offerings and teacher employment. In recent years, districts in my area have cut hundreds of teaching jobs. More and more districts also are offering online distance-learning options. By 2009, more than half the districts in the US had adopted at least some online courses.

In addition to reducing some costs, "it provides the ability to offer coursework that is otherwise unavailable at a child's school,” noted Anthony G. Picciano, co-author of a 2009 survey of chief administrators (the most recent data I could find). He added, “We find [this] to be especially significant in rural counties."

Tennessee student Kelsey Stephenson takes
an online course at home. Photo by Shawn
Poynter for Digital Directions.

By 2011, several districts and states had begun to require at least some online classes, as a preparation for the future. “The reality is, [at some point] they’re going to have to do an online course,” Kathleen Airhart of the Putnam County (TN) Schools said in an Education Week interview. “This helps prepare the students.”

Of course, not all courses lend themselves equally well to online teaching. As a studio art teacher, I question whether anyone will ever be able to teach an entire studio art course as effectively online as in person with actual materials and immediate feedback.

Salman Khan started a YouTube
online teaching phenomenon--but he's
wise enough NOT to teach some subjects.

The justly celebrated Khan Academy offers more than 3,200 teaching videos on a variety of topics—they even have an impressive range of art history offerings—but not hands-on classes such as ceramics or painting. I’ve seen lots of videos on these topics, true—but none could take the place of an actual teacher in a well-equipped classroom.

Wii Sports Baseball seems unlikely to replace the real thing
anytime soon.

Videos teaching athletic skills are subject to similar limitations. Although technology similar to the Wii gaming system may be developing that will bridge some of those gaps in the future, that time has not yet come as I write this.

If schools only existed to teach subject matter, it is possible that brick-and-mortar schools where students physically gather each day for a set period of time might soon be a thing of the past. But schools as we know them do not only serve as a source for academic learning.

When a massive tornado destroyed Joplin High School,
replacing it became a top community priority.

Schools also are important social and cultural centers for students and their communities. “A place can lose its bank, its tavern, its grocery store, its shoe shop. But when the school closes, you might as well put a fork in it,” writes Timothy Egan in an article about the demise of small towns in the United States. This explains why rebuilding destroyed schools after massive tornadoes in Joplin, MO, Greensburg, KS, and similar places is always hailed asan important community milestone.

Keeping children off the street and engaged in meaningful
learning is a primary role of schools that was unavailable to
these Troy, NY urchins as recently as 1910.

For many families, schools play a vital custodial function for their young children during the day while parents are at work. It is important not to underestimate the importance of this. Historically, public schools in the US were formed in parallel with the juvenile justice system, in response to a growing problem of theft and vandalism by roving bands of urchins as the Industrial Revolution pulled parents into factories, but found children to be unsatisfactory laborers.

Kansas City Missouri's BackSnack program, sponsored by
Harvesters and major donors such as LINC (the Local Invest-
ment Commission) and distributed through schools, provides
a vital service for food-insecure children.

Many poor children also depend on theirschool’s free and reduced breakfast and lunch programs for steady food sources in an otherwise food-insecure existence. The Harvesters “BackSnack” program uses schools as a distribution center for their program to extend food aid during weekends and holidays.

Any “school of the future” would need to meet all of these varied needs, but there might be good ways to do this, outside of a traditional, brick-and-mortar school. I have often wondered if some future schools might be organized into something resembling next-generation one-room schools.

Some employers already provide day care, such as in
this Boston-area store. Could a school room be part of
some future places of employment?

Children could gather in smaller groups, perhaps in community rooms of apartment buildings or in parents’ workplaces (in a similar facility to some employers’ current day-care centers). One or two teachers could supervise and complement or augment online lessons for children who might vary in age, but all attend the same location because it is in their “neighborhood.”

This is a volunteer mentor, but teacher-facilitators in
educational centers could offer similarly individualized
attention.

These teachers could mentor students through several years of schooling, providing both continuity and individualized guidance, appropriate to each student’s personality and abilities. They also could organize outings for special classes such as hands-on science labs, studio art, music classes, exercise classes, sports team practices, or trips to museums. 

This idea does not address the needs for racial and cultural integration experiences, opportunities to associate with age-peers, etc. It would work better in cities than in rural areas, but it also might answer a more complete range of needs than individual online learning in homebound isolation, while still reducing a district’s busing and building-maintenance costs.

No one can be sure what the future will bring, but I definitely think that schools are going to change.


PHOTO AND IMAGE CREDITS: The 2011 Signe Wilkinson (Philadelphia Daily News) “Classrooms of the Future” cartoon is from the NewsAdvance website. The photo of the futuristic-looking London classroom is from Ludic Productions. The photo of Kelsey Stephenson at work in her home was taken by Shawn Poynter for Digital Directions, an Education Week publication. The photo of Salman Khan is courtesy of the Socialtimes blog. The Wii Sports Baseball screen grab is from the Wii Secrets website. GIS at Bucknell provided the image of the tornado-devastated Joplin High School. The photo of the urchins in Troy, NY is courtesy of the "Sweet Juniper!" archive. The KC LINC website provided the "BackSnack Program" image. The employer-provided day care image is courtesy of the Boston Globe, and the photo of the mentor with her school-age friend is from the Raleigh, NC Neighbor-2-Neighbor organization's "outreach" webpage. Many thanks to all of them!

Read what I've been writing lately!

It has been a while since I've had a chance to post here, and I apologize. I am working on developing an every-other-week posting schedule, to begin in July. I am working on several stories now.


Meanwhile, I thought you might enjoy reading some of my work that recently has been published on the Teaching Tolerance Blog.


Here's a link to my Author Page, which gives an overview of all my work that they've published.

A Taste of Autonomy

This is the second in a series of "re-visioned" posts that first appeared on the Teaching Tolerance Blog. Posting them here gives me an opportunity to add photos and/or additional thoughts.

Working in an urban high school has its challenges, and my first “Computer Graphics” class was no exception. The computers were old PCs, and the software a “light” version of a program that had failed to compete with the standard of the graphic design industry. My class contained a mix of special education students, and youths with a reputation for disrupting normal classrooms.

Our computers were never top-of-the-line, but by the time we
got them, they had definitely seen better days.

A former graphic designer myself, I had returned to the classroom with a dream of teaching skills to urban art students that they actually could use to get jobs. But the program would be cancelled if things did not go well this semester.

It was time for an experiment. I spent the summer creating problems of increasing complexity, that these students could read and tackle at their own pace. The students’ first reaction was perplexity. They had never been taught this way before. They weren’t sure it would work.

Privately, I wasn’t sure, either, but I explained that real graphic designers have to think and manage time for themselves, and often have to look up instructions on their own, for ways to do new things with their software. “This is the last whole-group lecture I plan to give you,” I said. “Once we establish some basics, you will move at your own pace.”

One of the locally-infamous troublemakers blurted out, “What if you run out of modules? What if I finish the course before the semester ends?”

“I won’t run out,” I promised, hoping I could keep that promise. “If you finish Computer Graphics I, you can move on to Computer Graphics II.” He looked dubious, but nodded.

Learning to manage one’s own time fruitfully is hard. We had some rough spots. I had to patrol diligently, not only to troubleshoot when someone didn’t understand a direction, but also to ensure no one strayed to websites the school had forbidden.

One of my special education students couldn’t read well enough to follow the instructions in the modules. I made voice recordings for him. His mastery and confidence improved dramatically. Eventually he said, “I think I can do it without the recordings now,” and continued to perform well.

He told me later that seeing the words while listening to me read them helped him, and because he wanted to learn these skills, he finally had a personal reason to read.

He finished all the work I’d designed for Computer Graphics I, three weeks before the end of the semester—before some of the so-called “normal” students. What a proud moment!

One student who started the class did not complete all of Computer Graphics I. She had fairly profound disabilities, but worked conscientiously every day, and fully deserved her passing grade.

Everyone else finished. Most quickly signed up for Computer Graphics II, and word-of-mouth swelled Computer Graphics I to two sections. The program would not be cancelled!

The “troublemaker” who’d spoken up the first day did finish early—by the end of First Quarter. As I had promised, we went on to Computer Graphics II material. His main “trouble” was that he was intelligent, and bored in most of his classes.

It was challenging to produce new modules before he devoured them—but with this student I achieved my “dream goal.” He went on to work in the printing industry.


One more note: The idea of "self-paced learning" is not new, but it is enjoying a revival right now, with the proliferation of distance learning and computer-based learning. Terry Anderson, a Canadian professor and international expert on distance learning, describes it this way: 


"Self-paced programming maximizes individual freedom. Rather than making the obviously incorrect assumption that all students learn at the same speed, have access and control over their lives to march along with a cohort group of learners or are able, despite divergent life circumstances, to begin and end their study on the same day, self-paced study correctly puts the learner squarely in control.”


IMAGE CREDIT: I took the photo of the elderly computers we had available.

A Peaceful Place for Lunch

This is the first in a series of "re-visioned" posts that first appeared on the Teaching Tolerance Blog. Posting them here gives me an opportunity to add photos and/or additional thoughts.


The year I taught art in the dysfunctional chaos of an overcrowded urban middle school with weak administrators, practically everyone in the school—both students and teachers—needed a “safe place.”

Left mostly on our own to enforce discipline in our classrooms, we teachers quickly discovered that detentions were somewhat more effective than many of the other remedies. If students were unable to come to before- or after-school detentions—or were already “booked” with other teachers—some teachers scheduled lunchtime detentions.

Middle school lunchrooms can be crowded.
This one's in Denver, CO.

I had cherished my quiet lunches, alone in my art room for 20 fleeting minutes. However, I finally tried a “lunch detention” with a seventh-grade student I’ll call Marco. Normally a bright, good-humored kid, he and another student had begun arguing, tripping and throwing things at each other in my class. The other boy skipped school the day he was due for detention, so I escorted only Marco from the deafeningly anarchic lunchroom to the art room for his scheduled detention.

During our lunch together, we talked about the problems he’d been having with his classmate. I gleaned some helpful insights as he explained his side of the story. Marco apologized for his part in the disruptions and we agreed on a way to handle the situation better next time. Then we chatted about odds and ends until it was time for Marco to take his tray back to the cafeteria.

“Ms. G.,” he asked, “Is there any way I could have ‘lunch detention’ again sometime?”

“I enjoyed it, too,” I said. “Want to come back tomorrow?”

“Can I bring a friend?” he asked. 

The Art Room Lunch Group met in this classroom.

The Art Room Lunch Group, as we began to call ourselves, met every day after that. Eventually, I was granting daily “lunch in the art room” permission to between five and eight students. Marco and his friend became regulars, as did a small group of quiet Muslim girls, and a few other individuals. Not really by design, the group included at least one person from each of the racial and ethnic groups in the school.

The students who came for lunch told me many times how much they loved the chance to get away from the relentless noise and rowdiness that filled each school day. It’s a time free of neighborhood rivalries and contests of escalating machismo that kept classroom life in a state of constant tension. In our space, students could relax and build new friendships. They even developed their own code of conduct, and enforced it by “disinviting” any who caused trouble.

Working together, we turned our lunch time into a little island of peace in a difficult and hostile environment.

PHOTO CREDITS: The photo of the middle school lunchroom in Denver is by Tim Rasmussen, in The Denver Post. I took the photo of my middle school classroom, all "spiffed up" for Open House.

"Re-visioning" My "Teaching Tolerance" Posts

Teaching Tolerance logo

Sometimes it's not a bad idea to return to an idea you've previously explored.

As some of my readers may remember, I have become one of the regular bloggers for the Teaching Tolerance blog. Teaching Tolerance is a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and I am delighted to be associated with this excellent organization. 

My agreement with Teaching Tolerance allows me to re-post pieces that originally were posted on their site, after a certain period of time has passed. It occurred to me that doing so would give me an opportunity not only to share my thoughts with a different audience, but also to add photos, which their format does not allow.

Thus, over the next few months I intend to devote one post a month to a slightly "re-visioned" story or essay that originally appeared on the Teaching Tolerance Blog. As I do there, I will not use people's real names, but the stories I relate are true. I hope you'll find them interesting!

IMAGE CREDIT: The image for the Teaching Tolerance logo is from fellow educator Gary’s “Follow your Bliss” blog: http://followingyourbliss.blogspot.com/2011/07/teaching-tolerance.html

Are We on Digital Overload? Can We Protect our Kids?

Many people today watch the expanding role of digital media in our everyday life with—let’s be honest—mostly feelings of fear and dread. They focus wistfully upon things that we are losing or moving away from, in the changing cultural climate: things they value, such as silence, long stretches of uninterrupted time, or the act of reading a physical, bound, made-of-paper book.

And they worry—a lot.

While he's clearly not a young student, this man is juggling many different kinds of inputs. Is he on "overload?" Are our kids?

They worry that our digital gadgets put us on “overload,” and that this goes double for students. They feel that these devices keep kids (and all of us) too over-stimulated, that they load too much of the wrong kind of artificial light into our eyes, and that they keep us too sedentary on our ever-expanding buttocks.

They also live in terror that through social media their children will become entrapped by sexual predators and identity thieves, that they will become addicted to pornography from exposure too young, or that they will become addicted to games.

They worry that in the name of “multi-tasking,” we are doing more and more things superficially, distractedly, and just plain badly.

Online predators are a genuine threat to young Internet users.

Unfortunately, all of these things can and do cause problems. People who have concerns about digital media and the “information” or “services” they can deliver have many very valid points. There are a vast array of downfalls, dangers, and unintended results associated with digital media. And all of those fears/worries go double for the people who run schools. In most parts of the world, educators are operating in loco parentis legally. All sorts of bad results could rain down upon them if they fail to keep the students entrusted to their care safe from such threats.

How do they attempt to protect kids? Usually they clamp down, restrict access, and seek to control as much as possible how and when students use the Internet. They install blocking software, patrol computer labs relentlessly, and the best practitioners also talk seriously and frankly with students about the dangers that can lurk “out there.”

This is perfectly in keeping with a custodial role. But we need to think carefully about what we restrict and how we restrict it—or we can end up impeding the very education we are attempting to enhance.

Take as an example the story told by Susan Einhorn about her daughter and some of her classmates. They were preparing for an exchange-student trip to France. They developed friendships with their French “opposite numbers” through Facebook . . . but they couldn’t communicate with each other via Facebook at school, because the site was blocked.

This single example is hardly definitive, and it in no way diminishes the genuine dangers touched upon here. But it represents a dissenting opinion. As this series continues, I’d like to explore some of the ways that the use of digital media has become controversial, and some of the new and imaginative ways in which it can be used to deepen learning and enhance thinking skills.

IMAGE CREDITS: Many thanks to the University of Phoenix for the "distracted man" illustration, which they ran with an essay about digital distractions. The "online predator" illustration appears to have originated in Latvia(?), but I was unable to track down the artist's name. I first located the (unattributed) image in a post about tips for parents on the "Tech Welkin" blog.