Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’

[kmlisle]

42. While I agree that American schools are structurally racist I disagree that reform is a fix

Charter schools are re-segregating America in many cases and in a system already stacked against minority children, excessive testing and starving resources like libraries, teacher aids for children who need extra help, Art and Music and less time (about a third less time) to actually teach - 1-2 days on average per week go to preparing for and taking high stakes tests - makes it harder for them to succeed. I taught in a rural Title I middle school for over 20 years. It was actually a highly rated school with a great reputation that had a mix of wealthy and upper middle class kids who came there because of the school's reputation and kids who lived in poverty or were from poor working class families. So I taught kids whose parents spent a million dollars to build a practice track for their race horses and I taught kids who never went to town because there was no gas and sometimes no car. The latter children generally require a lot of support to do well in school and their experience of the arts and the opportunities of the outside world often were found in field trips or in some way through the school. Reform cuts these services to pay Pearson et al for testing. Plus Administrators, terrified of the result of low test scores on their careers, ban field trips, even when you find money to pay for them because it detracts from test prep time. This is not an environment conducive to real learning for any child but it is especially pernicious for children who are not apt to have art or music lessons or summer travel vacations or visits to museums with their parents that field trips and arts curriculum provide. In case you think these things are "frills" you need to understand how reading comprehension works based on background knowledge that is acquired through life experience and research that shows the Arts are an important contribution to educational success (they even raise test scores!). The only standards I have reviewed from the Common Core are Science because that is what I taught and while they were lacking a good background in Nature of science which was fixed somewhat after draft feedback came not just from me but from the National Science Teachers Association, there were also many things I liked about them. It is not so much the standards themselves, although I see criticism of the appropriateness of them at the elementary level, it is the implementation by the Educational Industrial Complex to maximize profit that I object to the most. Standards are not a bad thing, in fact I helped write my State Standards for Science and found I became a more effective teacher because of them. But standards if used rigidly ala tied to testing mania also make the assumption that every child is the same and can be taught the same way. This is the essence of the Reform Neoliberal philosophy that views the classroom as a factory floor and children as widgets. That and testing mania make reform bad for all children but especially bad for minorities and the poor.