{"id":339,"date":"2019-04-02T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T20:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/?p=339"},"modified":"2019-04-02T15:49:10","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T20:49:10","slug":"picking-up-the-pieces-from-the-schools-left-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/picking-up-the-pieces-from-the-schools-left-behind\/","title":{"rendered":"PICKING UP THE PIECES FROM THE SCHOOLS LEFT BEHIND"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now that public\nschools have been virtually destroyed by corporatism and banal policies which\nonly served to line the pockets of an education\ncorporate complex<\/em>, who is going to pick up the pieces?  There is no doubt that the emphasis on test scores,\ndata, and a remedial approach to intervention have backfired and contributed to\na wider achievement gap and a poorly educated citizenry. If you think that charter\nand magnet schools are the answer you have fallen into the trap of corporate\nspin. It is the same trap which exudes from the Whitehouse in daily tweets from\na consummate gas bag.  Unfortunately, the\nspin of privatization has effectively destroyed public schools. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once\na thriving institution thought to be the great\nequalizer, <\/em>public schools have been pushed over the brink into a pool of\nmediocrity. Frustrated by the emphasis on testing and intervention, many\nparents, especially those of gifted children or out-of-the-box thinkers, have\nchosen private school or home schooling. If we have learned nothing else, we\nnow know that almost everyone, except the uber wealthy has been left behind. And\nyet, we have an education secretary who continues to drive public schools into\nthe ground with an emphasis on privatization. Her own pockets have been lined\nby the corporate model which has contributed to the downfall of public schools.\nOur once thriving schools have become zombie nightmares devoid of engaged learners\nand motivated teachers. But that\u2019s what you get for letting the fox in the hen\nhouse who steals your golden egg.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          As schools come out of the anesthetic induced\nstupor of big data, they will need to rebuild the confidence of teachers and\nstudents, and the trust of parents and the community. It is not enough to admit\nour mistakes and move forward. Administrators and reformists can learn a lot by\nlooking into the not-so-distant past when elementary schools cultivated a love\nfor learning. Enrichment, environmental education, field studies and differentiated\npaths to knowledge through an integrated curriculum benefitted all students\nacross the learning spectrum.  Rather\nthan constantly applying triage to students who are bleeding out (from boredom,\nI might add), we need to reexamine what was<\/em>\nworking before public education was so brutally attacked.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          One of the great travesties of the\ndata-driven model is that we gave up on our gifted and talented population. We\nforfeited talent development for remediation and an emphasis on deficits rather\nthan strengths. While we were busy trying to raise the test scores of struggling\nstudents, we lost a whole population of students to charter or private schools\nbecause their needs were not being met in public school. We traded talent for\ntest scores, and a generation or more of our future thinkers, leaders, and\nproblem solvers became disengaged from the learning process. This is especially\ntrue in small rural districts, urban and economically disadvantaged schools\nwhich have suffered greatly from the punitive measures of not performing well\non standardized tests.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          One of the greatest casualties from high-stakes\nand punitive testing has been the loss of talented and gifted programs and\nschool-wide enrichment. It is na\u00efve to assume that only the \u201cbest and brightest\u201d\nsuffered, and that they would \u201cbe fine\u201d. Students who came from more affluent\nfamilies probably landed on their feet in a private school during the dark days\nof \u201cNo Child Left Behind\u201d and other such disruptive policies. However, poor and\nunderserved kids who relied on their school enrichment program to help them\ndevelop their talents and cultivate their gifts    were\ncast aside. But they were not the only ones. The expense of testing and the\nmass exodus of students to charter schools have depleted school budgets. With\nmore demands for interventionists, statisticians, data crunchers and teaching\ncoaches, enrichment teachers were plucked from the talent pool and placed in\nthe cesspool of intervention. Although there was no money for field studies,\nassemblies, and after school enrichment programs, there was always room for yet\none more interventionist. The word intervention itself implies that students\nare innately broken, rather than whole. And yet, the very methods of intervening<\/em> contributed to the current\nmess of broken schools, broken children, broken teachers and broken communities.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          There may be no turning back at this\npoint, although I had to laugh recently when I caught a public television show waxing\nover an environmental education program which is selling hands-on learning in\nthe outdoor classroom, as if it were a new idea. Having started my teaching\ncareer in Environmental Education, in the 1980\u2019s, the idea of engaging kids in\nconnecting to the earth and seeing first-hand the effects of pollution and\nclimate change is nothing new.  But Environmental\nEd, like talented and gifted programs were effectively derailed by a corporate\nmodel which robbed us of teaching science and social studies in elementary\nschools for at least twenty years. The rise of history and STEM charter schools\nis no coincidence. Due to the emphasis on reading and math in standardized\ntests, elementary schools virtually banned science and social studies from the\ncurriculum. True to the market economy of which they were born, charter schools\nare filling the void for all of us who were left behind.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          If you think that gifted education and\nenrichment are frivolous and elitist, consider what some of my former talent\npool students had to say          when I\nasked them to evaluate the program. I opened a can of worms when I asked my\ntalent pools to engage in a conversation about school. I wanted them to share\ntheir thinking about what they loved about school and what they would like to\nchange. They had a lot to say!  For the most\npart, they loved the Elementary School. They loved their teachers, the\nbuilding, the staff, administration and the playground. They loved the fact\nthat it felt like a family. But they didn\u2019t always like being \u201cthe smart kids\u201d\nin a classroom. They felt ripped off in a way.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Their frustration revolved around\nfeeling held back by the other kids. The teachers had to spend a lot of time\nhelping kids who struggled to keep up while talent pool kids had the burden of\npulling the weight of the class behind them. They were either ignored or asked\nto help other kids. When they did have trouble understanding something, they\nhated it when the teacher just gave them the answer. They wanted help figuring\nit out and thinking \u2013 not the answers. They hated the way everything was\ndisconnected in an hour of this an hour of that. However, they loved the way\nthe reading & writing workshop connected. \nThey loved coming to enrichment because they got to talk and think about\nthings and make connections. They wanted to do more in math, reading and\nwriting and they felt dragged down and bored by the whole-class instruction\nwhich was geared toward the other kids.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Their perspectives got me re-thinking\nthe heterogeneous classroom. Although I wanted to believe that the benefits of\nan academically diverse and inclusive classroom outweighed the down side, I\u2019m\nnot sure it\u2019s good for the kids on either end of the spectrum and especially\nnot so good for the ones we should be nurturing to become leaders in science,\ntechnology and innovation. My talent pool students loved their teachers and\ntheir friends. They didn\u2019t want to be home-schooled because they liked their\nsocial life. But they really wanted to be in a class together all day like when\nthey came to talent pool. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly\nafter my interview with talent pool students I heard about one of our faculty \u201cwalk-throughs\u201d.\n During the feed-back session, the principal\nwas perplexed that several kids got up and went to their talent pool cluster\nfor writing (Press Corps). After observing the lesson, he began to wonder out\nloud about the possible negative impact of the TAG program. He wondered what it\ndid to the rest of the class when the brightest kids left, and if they would\nbenefit more by keeping those kids in the classroom. He also wondered what the\nTAG kids missed out on and how it impacted them to miss a writing lesson. Thankfully,\nthe teacher spoke up in favor of the TAG program. She pointed out that when the\nTAG kids left it gave the rest of the class a chance to participate and share\ntheir own thinking, whereas they usually sat back and let the TAG kids do all\nthe work and answer all the questions. She couldn\u2019t speak to what the TAG kids\ngot out of being in press corps but did say that they didn\u2019t suffer from\nmissing a writing lesson once a week. In fact, I would add that they were\nbecoming better writers given the opportunity to publish a newspaper. Their\nnon-fiction writing skills and editing improved tremendously. I would also\nconjecture that the TAG kids enriched classroom discussions by sharing what\nthey had learned in their clusters and by making connections to the lessons in\nclass. After all, the enrichment courses were designed to connect with\nclassroom curriculum.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The TAG (talented and gifted) program\nwhich I directed and taught for seven years, benefited all the students in our small\nrural school. When I wasn\u2019t working with the talent pools, I was providing\nclassroom enrichment, after-school programs, schoolwide enrichment, science,\nsocial studies, invention convention and integrated arts and science (STEAM).\nBefore the budget was depleted, we had schoolwide assemblies and family nights\nwhere storytellers, musicians, authors and scientists shared their talents and\nexpertise. The school was abuzz with engagement and learning. We had gardens, a\ngreenhouse, and numerous service projects linked to the community. Most\nimportant, the kids who were a little out of the box, the quirky creatives, and\nthe divergent thinkers had a home-base in the school. They had true mentorship.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          I know I\u2019m beating a dead horse here,\nbut the demise of the TAG program, the removal of science and social studies\nfrom the curriculum, and the emphasis on a data-driven model was an apocalypse for\nmy school and many others. I\u2019m sure we were not alone. Although I don\u2019t have available\ndata to support it, I can anecdotally report that with without the TAG program,\nbullying increased along with a decline in student behavior. These negative\ntrends also coincided with a much more punitive emphasis on test scores and\nstudent performance. The school climate took a plunge with parents venting\ntheir anger at teachers while administration chose to duck and cover. Test\nscores continued to plummet, and yet no one questioned the validity or the\nethics of a test-driven model. Curriculum was reduced to reading and math while\nsocial studies and science were banned from the schedule. Those of us who\ncontinued to teach science had to sneak it in behind closed doors. The language\narts program consumed most of our time with very poor results. Where the TAG\nprogram had cultivated a stimulating learning environment for students and\ntheir families, we were now cultivating anti-intellectualism and a dislike for\nreading and writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          It breaks my heart to think about the\nwonderful standards-based lessons and projects the TAG program provided for all\nthe students and teachers in that school. The enrichment model was\npedagogically sound and based on the curriculum for each grade. Rather than\nextraneous fluff, it became an integral part of the classroom teaching and\nlearning. Like Environmental Education, the enrichment model was the tease\nwhich got students engaged in a desire to know more. It is unfortunate that\npublic schools sold out to the corporate model, and ironic that corporations\nare now enticing students away from public schools by providing science, social\nstudies, environmental studies and enrichment in the form of charter schools.\nIf public schools continue to pander to the failing data-driven model, they\nwill bleed-out as more families and teachers divest themselves from one of our\nmost sacred ideals of democracy. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nBetsy DeVos and her corporate ilk have their way, public schools will no longer\nexist. Instead, private institutions specializing in various unregulated\npedagogical philosophies will be providing a smorgasbord of choice on the\nspectrum between special education and gifted. Like third-world and developing\ncountries, and not unlike the 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> centuries in\nthis country, education will come at a price. Those who can afford it will send\ntheir children to private schools. Those who can\u2019t will get a rudimentary\neducation, continuing the cycle of poverty and racial inequity. Perhaps someone\nin that not-so distant dystopian future will wonder why no one stepped in to\npick up the pieces of our dismantled public schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that public schools have been virtually destroyed by corporatism and banal policies which only served to line the pockets of an education corporate complex, who is going to pick up the pieces?  There is no doubt that the emphasis on test scores, data, and a remedial approach to intervention have backfired and contributed to … <\/p>\n

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