Making Education Flexible

Across the country, the education debate rages. The problem is it rages over the wrong things. Instead of the conversation being dominated by what is going on in the classroom, we are arguing the merits of unions and collective bargaining rights; the costs of pensions and health insurance premiums.

Meanwhile, the children of America slip further into the educational abyss, sinking into a muck that slows their entry into college and the job market. I have already written about how Michigan found that many of its graduates in the Class of 2010 were ill prepared to begin college level courses, or lacked the job readiness skills needed to enter the workforce. (The Not-So-Proficient Graduate, Feb. 22, 2011). In that post, I also mentioned the graduation rates for four-year and two-year institutions across the country, as well as the percentage of students who needed remediation on entry to the state of Washington’s community colleges and technical schools.

The statistics mentioned in that article speak to the fact that students across the country are not being properly prepared for adult life. It is not an urban problem or a suburban problem. Yet, we make the argument an urban versus suburban; union versus non-union; inexperienced teacher versus experienced teacher; charter school versus public school; tenure versus non-tenure. The list goes on and on.

Luckily, not everyone is distracted by the noise. Instead, many are seeking solutions to the problems that plague education. While those educators use different programs and different ideas to lift students from the educational morass, they share some common traits -- flexibility and freedom in the classroom.

In western Massachusetts, for example, a high school allowed eight students to create their own school within a school. The students, two of whom were at-risk of dropping out, decided to split their September-to-January term into two halves, according to a March 14 Op-ed piece by Susan Engel in the New York Times (Let Kids Rule the School).

The students, aged 15 to 17, developed their own curriculum under the watchful eyes of their guidance counselor and several teachers who provided advice. The students were responsible for monitoring one another's work and giving feedback. They also wrote evaluations for each other.

According to Engel, the students became not only learners, but teachers. And they excelled, with one of the students who had considered dropping out changing his mind. Another student who had failed all of his previous math courses ended up spending three weeks teaching his fellow students about probability.

The upshot, Engel concluded, was that the students were more engaged and invested in their educations.

Other schools that have given teachers -- and even students -- greater flexibility have also seen transformative results.

In Oakland, Calif., a third-grade teacher at a public school there began writing a children's novel. Each time the teacher finished a new chapter, he shared it with his students, who offered critiques.

"It really has gotten them excited about writing," the teacher, Joe Imwalle, told Grace Rubenstein of The New York Times. "Seeing their teacher try to do it brings writing closer to home. It bridges the gap between published novels they see in the library and the idea that they come from a person and a process."

How important is flexibility in the classroom?

So much so that flexibility in developing academic plans is a major concern for operators who may want to help Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager in Detroit, convert 41 failing public schools into charter schools.

Todd Ziebarth, vice president of state advocacy for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools in Washington, told the Detroit News that charter school operators will want to know if "they have the flexibility to innovate."

Too often teachers are micro-managed by principals, who are micro-managed by school board officials, so much so that every last minute of the school day is directed from somewhere up high with little deviation to accommodate student needs.

During a recent conversation with a friend who operates two private schools for special needs students, my friend detailed a promotional film his school was making. According to that friend, a teacher with decades of experience in the classroom was asked why he continued to teach at the school.

"Because I have the freedom to do what I think is necessary," the teacher said.

And that is the rub. Teachers often find themselves victim to what Engel says has dogged public school reform efforts.

"We have tried making the school day longer and blanketing students with standardized tests," she wrote in that March 14 Op-ed piece. "But perhaps children don't need another reform imposed on them. Instead, they need to be the authors of their own education."

The only way students can become authors of their own educations is to give teachers -- and them -- flexibility and freedom in the classroom.

What's Going On

We seem to be channeling Marvin Gaye these days. Two quick examples:

Atherton, Calif.: A school teacher rattles a table to get the attention of his eighth-grade math students. One girl is so startled, she pulls out her cell phone and calls 911. The police arrive to find a calm classroom. Nonetheless, the teacher is placed on leave because the police were called to the school.

Texas: A Republican member of the state House introduces immigration legislation that would make it illegal to hire "unauthorized aliens." Anyone caught doing so can be punished by two years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The legislator offering up the bill is backed by the Tea Party, but don't label her as one of those raving, heartless, lunatics usually associated with the party. Rep. Debbie Riddle's law will not apply to people who hire "unauthorized aliens" to do household chores. Why? Rep. Aaron Pena, another Republican, told Yahoo News: "When it comes to household employees or yard workers it is extremely common for Texans to hire people who are likely undocumented workers. It is so common it is overlooked." Riddle says the distinction between job categories is needed because if not "a large segment of the Texas population" would end up in prison if the bill became law.

Oh, make me wanna holler and throw up both my hands. Yea, it makes me wanna holler and throw up both my hands. Ow!

The New Macho

It's easy to be a curmudgeon, a complainer, a whiner, to live in a world where everything is horrible, and niceties are the stuff of wimps. You disagree? Then how does one explain Glenn Beck and Andy Cohen?

Beck, the Fox News darling who spends his time attacking anything progressive, decided to take on Detroit, berating the city as being worse than Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. Cohen, the senior vice president of original programming and development at Bravo, decided to make cultural points by directing smarmy comments at the fifth grade students from Public School 22 on Staten Island.

That Beck would attack Detroit is no surprise. Whenever national conservative commentators have nothing of worth to say they trot out Detroit or some other Midwestern city, usually one led by an African-American, for ridicule and scorn. But for Cohen to denigrate a bunch of school children who were invited to sing "Over the Rainbow" at the end of the Oscar telecast is just cheap even for someone who is a master of cheap programming.

Cohen's comments came on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show. The host, Willie Geist, asked Cohen what was his "lowlight of the night" Sunday. Cohen quickly turned to the kids from Staten Island, saying their appearance was inappropriate for the Oscars. Wrong time, wrong place, Cohen lamented.

While the song and the student's performance were schlocky at best, a sentimental tug at the heart, they were what Hollywood is. Criticizing little children for singing at an Oscar's telecast is even low for him. I'm quite sure that other people can pick even greater "lowlights": the virtual Bob Hope; Billy Crystal; the boring speeches; the tacky dance scenes; the contrived music video using clips from the Best Picture nominees; the telecast itself. Any of those could have easily been cited as lowlights.

Not for Cohen, though. Instead, he decided that the performance of 10 and 11 year olds were the lowest lowlight of the evening. Why? What was the point of lambasting the children's appearance? What is gained by doing so?

The same can be said of Beck. Detroit is always the subject of ridicule, so much so that the comments have become old hat. Yes, Chrysler and General Motors were insular and poorly run companies that got bailouts. Yet, neither created the financial meltdown that sent America spiraling into an economic abyss. Many of the people who were at the forefront of that disaster continue to operate on Wall Street after receiving bailouts, and are quickly trying to return to their old habits.

Yet, there is little criticism of those entities. Attacking Detroit allows one to attack unions and the American auto industry, both of which have been convenient whipping boys. Too attack children is to say one is above sentimentality. Neither adds to the dialogue that needs to exist in this country.

Both, of course, are easy to do when you have nothing of worth to say and a lot of time in which to say it. Apparently being nasty and appealing to the worst within us is the most favorable fashion trend, the new macho look for America.