Reading through the books we've been asssigned as well as the blogs and newspaper articles, the thing that has begun to stand out the most to me is the spectacular waste of funds the school reform movement has caused. It's ludicrous to think that foundation have spent billions - the federal government has spent billions - and if those funds had been directed INTO the institutions (ie, schools) in the first place instead of scattered to ancillary businesses and organizations, there'd be fewer "problems" to correct!
I suppose critics would say that the schools were failing - why pump more money into institutions that weren't doing their job well? That's the core difficulty with the whole reform movement. There wasn't a crisis to begin with. Certainly, some schools were not churning out their fair share of honor scholars, most likely to succeeds and just plain graduates, but those schools were few and far between. Yes, even one school like that is too many, but, if financial resources were funneled into that school instead of paying for another round of standardized tests, charter schools and newfangled intiatives, isn't it logical to think that the siutation would have improved? More money in that school's budget means more teachers, higher salaries that attract experienced teachers, smaller class sizes, more hands-on resources to engage learners, better, cleaner, neater facilities that encourage better behavior and performance. Isn't that what we want in the end?
Of course, if we got results by funding public education in the first place, scores of "education" oriented businesses would not reap extensive profits. Money would still flow to them for textbooks, but the lucrative testing funds would dry up. Those businesses looking to tap into the annual $600 billion a year that funds public education would be out of luck by trying to get money for charter schools and new rounds of tests.
I'm writing this after coming from a faculty meeting in which the principal just unveiled our class schedules next year. Schedules are tight here in our middle school, since we had two teachers retire that won't be replaced due to budget cuts. Our school population is falling slightly, so our class sizes won't rise dramatically. That's good. But what made me sad was when when the principal was talking about textbooks, and said flat out that we don't have enough money to buy new textbooks to replace heavily damaged books, let alone purchase all new textbooks for any one subject. (Books that are falling apart apparently are going to be 3-hole punched and placed in a binder.) Our science and math books have not been replaced for 8 years. Perhaps that's not such a big deal in math - pedagogy for middle school math may have changed over 8+ years, but I'm pretty sure equations, properties and operations have remained constant. Science, though? Ideas and information change daily, weekly, monthly - let alone yearly (decade-ly?). Our science books still list Pluto as a planet! (Though I hear it may become one again. We can just keep the books, I guess.)
Then again, I am remiss in thinking that update science books are a big deal. Due to the emphasis placed on the PSSA tests and math and reading scores, our kids spend less class time on science anyway. Just send the money directly to some company that wants to start a for-profit charter school. They aren't held to any standards, so they won't have to teach science at all - it all works out!
No comments:
Post a Comment