Posted by: junea on: March 5, 2007
I’m going to go off on a little tangent with this post, so apologies beforehand.
I attended an alumni event this weekend for my dear alma mater; it was a panel discussion discussing Mayor Villaraigosa’s takeover of LAUSD. It was moderated by Professor Kenneth Wong with panelists representing the LAUSD school board, another California school board, a member of the Mayor’s staff, and a teacher in a LAUSD charter school.
First thoughts – Amazing props to my alma mater and everyone involved for organizing and participating in such an important event. What a great commitment to dialogue and education. My reaction after the jump.
What happened – Now what happened at this event left a bad taste in my mouth. Dr. Wong started out by stating the issue: The political and bureaucratic system of public education is very complex, with LITTLE clear lines of accountability (even though we are obsessed with it). In some cities (Chicago, NYC etc) mayors have taken more control to 1. have more say in education policy and 2. create clear lines of accountability (the mayor’s office). Dr. Wong finds some good evidence that this strategy of mayoral takeover brings positive results – but as any good researcher will say, in SPECIFIC CONTEXTS.
Now the other panelists (and the educated audience) were not so balanced. The next speaker, a school board member, made an empassioned speech lauding the role of school boards as “democratically elected” officials whose sole purpose is to look out for the well being of the children. She ended by stating that others who are outside of the classroom or school (a side swipe at academics, politicians, and others) just make a mess of things and should have no say in the matter of education. She was a great speaker, very popular with the audience, but oh how incensed I was for 2 reasons. 1) She painted an idealized picture of school boards and the governance structures of education. Public school governance is NOT IDEAL, it is complex, muddled, and full of politics. It often does not even look at the well being of children and it is disarming and quite irresponsible to suggest that school boards are shining knights of justice. 2) She effectively and rudely tried to silence any other voice in the debate except for hers, teachers, and other practitioners. While I understand why she would do that, it is again irresponsible. Public education is a common good, and thus open to common participation and dialogue.
The next speaker was a LAUSD school board member. Not only did he start off with racial insults, stating that Dr. Wong’s thesis on mayoral roles in education was the “Wong Thesis” and not the “right thesis”, but he equated Mayor Villaraigosa’s takeover as akin to the war in Iraq. Again, irresponsible characterization, and silencing language. He did make one point that was correct and I am happy to share – that urban education is a complex process and there are factors that schools, teachers, and others cannot be blamed for namely the role of POVERTY in these children’s lives. Very good point amidst the insensitive remarks from this man.
The next speaker was from the mayor’s office. He made a balanced presentation about why the mayor felt compelled to take the political risk and get involved in LAUSD. He was also rudely interrupted at every turn by questions, catcalls, and other strategies by the school board members and teachers in the audience. I was embarrassed at members of my alma mater.
The last speaker was a former executive of Fatburger Inc who made an inspired decision to get into teaching. He taught in one of the worst public schools in LAUSD and now works at another public charter school. He made the best presentation of all, bringing a teacher’s perspective to the messy discussion. His main points were 1. Accountability is good if we care about equity and justice for our students, and any good teacher wants accountability. And 2. When a system is not working in the business world, a shakeup often works to create a positive change (and thus mayoral takeover may be good in some cases).
The Q & A was even more embarrassing than some of the panel members. The questions generally centered around political statements concerning the appalling idea of mayoral takeover of a school district. I believe the event ended with one woman in the audience lecturing the crowd on how nothing really matters – what really matters is that our country’s immigration policy has allowed millions of primitive people, who have too many children, low morals, and low achievement to flood our schools and communities. Very embarrassing. It was not lost on me that we were a bunch of Ivy leaguers discussing issues of poor, urban schools sitting in a nice mansion in Bel Air.
Now to my point. I feel that education discussions fall under two general areas – Operation and Politics. The operation of education is concerned with questions like: how do students learn? How does professional development help teaching practice? What kind of leadership and governance structures lead to better schools? How do we measure how students are doing? Who is accountable? The politics discussion often centers around questions like: who is in power? are schools promoting democracy? liberty?
These two discussions often get muddled together… and often the politics win out over knowledge and correct information. This is why we (who are interested in ed reform) are muddled in a never ending cycle of mediocrity. In my ideal world, everyone would realize that 1. they are speaking from their own constituent base, 2. that there are other perspectives that are needed, and 3. we need to WORK TOGETHER and stop silencing each other in a political game of cultural and social violence.
I ask any read of this long post to consider this key question if they are interested in accountability and the public school system:
Who should be accountable and how should we measure their progress?
The issue of accountability as been focused on the policy and governance levels – from the Federal to the District level – and so we have talks about mayoral takeover. However, practitioners scoff and say that what is really important is what goes on in the classroom. I wholeheartedly agree (as a former teacher myself). So let’s get responsible and ask ourselves how to hold those people in the classroom accountable: the teachers and students, and also school administrators. How would you propose to do it?
Let’s start responsibly answering that question.
In fact a good exercise might be for each constituent group to determine how they want to be measured and held accountable, with the requirement that they must faithfully address the concerns of other constituent groups.
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