Progressive Education National Network

[Katy]

You are sitting next to U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings at a dinner party. What do you say to her?

During the next six months, teams of researchers led by Susanna Loeb, a Stanford economist, and funded by four independent, non-partisan foundations, and endorsed by the governor, the state superintendent of instruction and legislators, will pursue a vexing question: What should the state do to ensure that public education in California is adequately and wisely funded?

The studies may suggest a range of options. Action steps will depend on how legislators choose to define an adequate education. How would you describe an adequate education?
1) Satisfying the requirements of the high school exit exam?
2) Proficiency as defined by the No Child Left Behind law?
3) Completing courses required for admission to a four year state college?
4) A well-rounded citizen who can read critically, balance a checkbook, and participate in a democracy?

[John Ramos]

I think participating in a democracy is probably the most important. It requires reading, writing, and math. It requires understanding civics and social issues. It helps to understand persuasion and conflict resolution. History and social studies are a big help, too.

Merely living in a democracy is not as demanding as participating in one, so perhaps an adequate education could be about completing courses and satisifying exam requirements if the requirement was not to actually participate in the democracy.

Today, not enough citizens participate in democracy at the simplest level: voting in every election: local, school boards, municipal, federal. If the vote is about something scientific like stem cell research, it would be helpful to understand scienctific principles. I can't think of anything that a student would learn in a good school that wouldn't help participation in the democracy.

[Guest]

I would tell Margaret Spellings that standardizing education (and trying to make all of education in America the same) is not very democratic. This country was built on diversity, not one model, one size fits all.

I would ask her how much time she spends in successful schools that do not subscribe to the high stakes testing model, but actually teaching children to think for themselves.

[Barry Pak]

Who can argue against the concept of No Child Left Behind? I have never heard a really reasoned argument. We need to make sure kids learn in each grade and can move to the next level. It is about logical progression. We need to be competitive with other countries. What is wrong with good education and then passing a test? I say that proficiency is the most important thing because then we know it was an adequate education.

[Rene]

My conversation with Margaret Spelling would be about the unintentional (or intentional??) consequence of closing or stopping the growth of innovative programs and schools as the federal government moves to fund schools using the tests as the only criteria for deciding if the school is doing its job.

[gsherif]

[bettyach@ucsc.edu]

What to say to Margaret Spellings:

I wonder what would happen if prospective outstanding teachers were recruited and funded the same way that we recruit athletes?

I wonder what would happen if we invested in education as a form of "national security" in the sense of promoting democracy within the US, in the same amount that we fund wars abroad?

I wonder would you put your child in a "hard to staff" school where accountability pressures are the greatest?

I wonder whether the outcome at the end of this pendulum swing of increased testing/accountability, will be a radical swing in the other direction?

I wonder...

[Ari]

Why is educational policy being made by people who are not in the classroom, or at the very least in the schools? In this country, why is it tolerated for policy and laws to be made by people who have either left the classroom or never been in charge of one?

[Sue Windsor]

To Margaret Spelling:

What is wrong with local control? Why are you moving control in the classroom so far away from the teachers? This seems like the most inefficient and ineffective way to manage education in this country. How will it work?

My thinking: It won't!

[David]

to Ms. Spellings

How much time have you spent in a classroom lately?

[Ruth White]

I honestly don't know how education should be funded. It seems complicated and not an easy fix. I don't think it should be funded at the federal level because the money and the control are too far away from the kids. The farther away it gets, the more people who need to be paid who don't work with kids.