The Education Vortex

My friend and colleague Joel Hummel encouraged me to watch the movie Idiocracy during the 2012 Presidential primary season. I have never been so torn between laughing uproariously and crying bitterly in my entire life.

Until now.

The selection of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education in the next administration is an insult to every child and every public school teacher in America. Mrs. DeVos is an avowed Creationist. She supports the use of public (read: tax) money to pay for private education, including in religious schools, through the use of vouchers. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb to say that her religious belief probably trumps any support she should have for excellent science education, regardless of public or private school environment. The progress we have started to make in STEM/STEAM fields over the past few years with the introduction of high standards of achievement (Common Core, which though the name is reviled makes a lot of sense as a concept and, much to my surprise, comes to kids pretty naturally once the teacher can explain the concepts…and because none of us who teach grew up with the concepts being taught this way, it’s taken some time to ramp up adult learning) is in grave jeopardy if Mrs. DeVos and Mr. Trump follow through with their vision of education for America.

Let me tell you about the people this vision would hurt: Public school students, staff, and teachers.

Public school students spend roughly 7 hours a day in the school building. Those 7 hours are used differently by age group, but they are used well.

Elementary kids get about 20 minutes for lunch and 20-30 minutes of recess per day. Once a week, maybe twice, they get gym for 45-60 minutes. Assuming that their district has the funds, once a week, they also get music, art, technology/computers, and library for 45-60 minutes each. Every minute of that time is active learning time, even lunch and recess. Kids are learning to negotiate the world through socialization. They’re learning how to take care of their bodies and be good team members and good sports in gym. They’re learning to appreciate different ways to be creative in music and art classes. In technology classes, they’re using the vast resources of the web to practice a range of skills from typing to reading and research and writing to mathematics and geometry. In library, they’re learning to love to read as well as to research the “old fashioned” way using real books as well as library-based technology. The remaining 5.5 hours or so, they’re learning more traditional subjects. Sometimes they’re with their classroom teacher that whole time. Sometimes, teachers in a grade level swap classes or groups for reading, math, science, or social studies. Some kids have specialized instruction (Title 1) time with an intervention specialist one or more times a week or a day. 

Middle schools vary widely in schedule and structure, but as in elementary, there are “specials” for students each day and at least every other day, the core subjects of math, English/Reading (Language Arts), science, and social studies. Some schools have the same class period schedule every day. Others have as many as 12 different variations of schedules to accommodate as many possibilities as available. Block scheduling sometimes means 2 hours of math one day and 2 hours of ELA the next on a 2-day schedule; other times, it means 2-1/1-2 of math and ELA per day over 2 days. Same with science and social studies. Some middle schools have a mandatory foreign language, others don’t. Many middle schools offer “flex” periods once or twice a week (we would have called them study halls) for students to receive help in classes, work on group projects, or catch up on work. Rarely do middle school students get recess, although I personally think they should get at least 15 minutes a day. Middle school kids also have organized sports, usually, and begin to have audition-based groups like band, chorus, and theater programs where funding is available. Title 1 help is available to students as needed. All of this happens as they face puberty and all the drama, for girls AND boys, that comes with it. There’s a reason middle school teachers are very special people…

High school students mostly have to get up far too early for their teenage body clocks (and, truth be told, for my night-owl body clock, as well!) to function in first and second periods of the day.¹ At least through junior year, most students have the four core subjects plus a foreign language (though there are districts with minimal foreign language instruction and some with none!), physical education/health, and an elective or two. With the advent of mandatory standardized testing, many students now have specialized instruction in the subjects on which they will be tested before they can graduate, especially if they do not pass the first time. Sports, performance groups, clubs, school newspapers/yearbooks, and other educational activities add time to the day beyond the 7 hours for students and teachers alike. Yes, as much as I complain about the disparity between sports funding and funding for art/music/theater, I have to admit that competitive sports are an educational activity: teamwork, developing new skills, strategy, perseverance, and time management are valuable experiences in the real world.

Public schools, even in areas that don’t seem very diverse, present children with the opportunity to make friends with others who are quite different than them, be it race, ethnicity, religion, economic status, parental education level, family structure, or any other way. What would these public school student lose if billions in education funding are funneled away from public schools—which are mandated to take every student or prove to a nearly insurmountable degree that the student’s needs cannot be met—to charter schools or private schools which can deny admission for any number of reasons? And what do charter school and private school students lose by not having to learn to negotiate life with people who are incredibly different than them?

The staff and faculty that make public schools possible are the other group that will get hurt if the vouchers idea really takes off at the federal level. The administrative assistants, administrators, custodians, kitchen staff, and nurses are essential parts of the machine in each school. Funding cuts will hurt these positions and make running each school just that much harder than it already is. Teachers rely on these folks for support day in and day out; even if no teaching position were cut, staff cuts would affect the quality of the education offered to the students because teachers would have to pick up the slack. And they would, too.

Why? Because I’ve never met a teacher who doesn’t believe that what she or he does is of great value to society…at least at the beginning of the day. I’m sure by the end of some days, some of them wonder. But they keep coming back and it’s not for the 6-figure paycheck or the high esteem in which their profession is held (though it would be awesome if teachers did make 6 figures before the decimal point as a sign of the high regard in which their profession is held!).

Teachers work HARD. I have yet to walk into a classroom as a guest/substitute without what I needed to keep the students of the day safe, engaged, and on-task, either with a lesson prepared specifically for that day when the absence was planned or with an emergency plan for illness or family need. That takes time, only a small part of which is available to them during the 8 hours or so most teachers are required to be on campus each day. What do classroom teachers do when their classes are with other teachers? They grade papers. They e-mail parents. They talk with intervention specialists about their students. They make the copies they couldn’t get from the school/district copy center in a timely fashion because there’s no money in the budget to keep those copiers running well. They meet with their other grade-level colleagues to plan activities or to catch up on student progress.  They make and update sub plans so that learning can continue even when they’re out. Specials teachers do the same things, but they often have five or even six grade levels to handle (and sometimes 2 or 3 schools!), which means in addition to all the grading/evaluating, e-mailing, conversations, copying, and planning with team members, for subs they have to make five or six sets of plans. 

Oh, and “Teachers only work 9 months a year?” Nope. Hardly a year goes by when a teacher doesn’t have some kind of summer program to attend, either for official CEUs to maintain certification or because a new textbook or curriculum or teaching strategy is being implemented and they need to learn the material for the upcoming year. Professional development happens 12 months a year, and I promise that every teacher spends at least some time on every vacation thinking about how this or that experience can help in the classroom…it’s like preaching in that way.

These are the people who will be affected deeply if vouchers become the mainstay of school funding. Students, staff, and teachers alike will suffer more than they already do in a society that has continually downgraded its understanding of facts and devalued learning and thinking as essential to individual and communal success. Idiocracy is the absurd extreme of this downgrading and devaluing. Voucher programs, I fear, will suck us much closer to that extreme by denying too many students access to accountable, standards-driven educational programs that at least attempt to prepare them for the 21st century, no Biblical Creationism included.

¹Science has proved that adolescence shifts our sleep and waking hormone cycles, so get with the program, already!