Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Charter vs. Public Education
The earth has a fever.... As soon as Guggenheims name came into the article I knew that the film she was critiquing would be full of his agenda and partial truths. As much as we would like to think a documentary is truth seeking, in Guggenheims case, it is him pushing what he believes to be the fix for public education, neglecting to look at the whole picture.
Diane Ravitch tears apart many aspects of the film from questioning why he only focused on successful charter schools and failing public schools when the reality is both exist in equal measure. Also the fact that he focusses on Canada's schools in NYC, which receive a lot of donation and attracts top scholars who are motivated is suspect. I agree with Ravitch that his movie is mostly bunk and not thorough, however, she contradicts herself as to the reason for failure in our schools. Maybe both Ratvich and Guggenheim touch on some truths, but fail to give a definitive answer.
Guggenhein asserts that schools are failing because out teachers are not good enough and Unions are keeping tenured teacher who are under performers. Ravitch agrees that we need a better system to fire bad teachers but suggests that classroom teachers are only 10-20% predictor of the achievement outcome. She then goes on to point out Finland's success and attributes it to excellent teachers who are supported, contradicting that the teacher role in the student’s success. John Hattie's visible learning makes a strong case for the teacher’s large role in education; I strongly recommend reading more about visible learning. Ravitch then goes on to say that poverty is not mentioned in the film enough as an indicator of success or failure, siting that Finland poverty is at 5% compared to the US at 20%. China comes in at 13% extreme poverty http://borgenproject.o and Sinarg/10-facts-about-poverty-in-china/living living on less than $1.25 a day, Korea is around 15%and Singapore has climbed to 28% from 16%. http://thehearttruths.com/2013/10/28/poverty-in-singapore-grew-from-16-in-2002-to-28-in-2013/ My point being that poverty might not be the biggest problem in our education system, maybe we need to start looking more closely at the dynamics of the family unit, on top of the afore mentioned issues.
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I agree with you. Poverty isn't the main culprit of school failure in the United States. The difference comes with the different view of the teaching profession from our culture to others. There is a negative view of the teaching profession in the US. In other cultures learning and teachers are well respected, which is not the case in the US. In the US parents "know" that their kids are little angels and can do no wrong, but in other countries teachers are respected and the kids have a more positive attitude towards learning.
ReplyDeleteYou hit on some good points. As an educator I have always believed my job to be that of a teacher. What, you ask? Take the kids from where they are and do your best possible job to advance them. Not all students learn at the same rate, therefore not all students are going to learn the same amount of information. Some will learn more, some will learn less. Is that ok? It has to be! There are too many external influences in public education that may (or may not) cause students to struggle. If it's not poverty than it is something else. I also have to wonder, do these issues differ from those students who are enrolled in charter schools. Maybe, maybe not. If I had to guess, poverty and charter schools probably do not go together, but even the well to do have problems that may interfere with their success.
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