Edumacation...

So, I 've decided to start posting my education papers/responses. This is one I just responded to. I'll post more in the future, and possibly links to the pdfs. You could also probably find the articles on Google. However, I may not post the articles unless I get a large response because the original articles themselves are incredibly boring to read. Therefore, it's not worth my time to post the whole article.

Inequality and the Right to Learn: Access to Qualified Teachers in California Public Schools

Linda Darling-Hammond

Stanford University

The main problem I have with high-minded educational solution articles such as this is the one question that always comes to my mind. Why don’t the writers themselves teach in the urban school districts they’re trying to fix? That’s the crux of the problem-the best educational minds don’t even want to get their hands dirty; they’d rather just talk about it from the safety of their ivory towers. It’s easy to criticize urban school districts for not hiring “highly-qualified teachers” when they themselves won’t teach in them. And if they had taught in them, it was for a short time-a stepping stone to a more illustrious career in academia. This may seem cynical, but the truth often is.

I also don’t like how authors such as Darling-Hammond always look to other states for solutions to problems that are unique to California. For example, Connecticut (which she uses heavily as the basis for her solution) is nothing like California. Citizens in states such as Connecticut have a predominantly distinct community identity and values that feed into the success of schools; compared to California which is a hodgepodge of opposing interest groups, identities, and community values.

New testing and accountability systems in California fail to work because the parents and community at large aren’t drawn into the accountability equation. In states such as Connecticut there is more of a sense of group community identity and individual accountability that’s instilled into the individual student at a young age; where as in California a sense of self-entitlement, exaggerated individuality, and placing blame on the teachers and schools for one’s failure supersedes personal and community responsibility. These factors all contribute to the success or failure of accountability measures in both states.

In addition, the author complains about bureaucracy hindering teachers from out of state coming into California to teach, yet her recommendations for solutions entail increasing the bureaucracy. This makes no sense what-so-ever, which is why it makes sense that California’s public school system keeps failing. Most of the solutions brought about by educational scholars are logically contradictory, not to mention cater to the intellectual fads of overly idealistic scholars who hide from the real world and its problems while casting blame from above on everyone getting their butts kicked by the real world below. Emergency credentialed teachers and the like are necessary for the simple fact that high-minded educational intellectuals who have all the answers (like Darling-Hammond) won’t put their money where their mouths are, and teach in the inner-cities for an extended time period themselves.

Furthermore, most top private schools only require a college degree to get a job, and they do just fine as teachers. The reason is because the community at large as well as the individual student has had a strong sense of personal responsibility and accountability instilled in them from a very young age. As a result, classroom management problems are relatively non-existent, and the teacher’s energy can be primarily focused on teaching instead of classroom management issues (which is the main problem in California public schools if you ask me). You can fund the schools all you want, but if the students are going to destroy and steal the resources, act up in class, and not be pressured at home by the community to do their homework (value education) then it’s not going to make that big a difference. Efforts by academia and politicians need to be focused on fixing the broken communities, families, splintered identities, and the dysfunctional mentality of the community at large before they can expect to fix the public school system.