Running with the Devil

"Race to the Top" (RT3) is Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's program for doling out education bucks to the states. It's a dog race that I believe will led to nothing but a dog pile. I really dislike whining, but the RT3 is nothing more than a continuation of the Bush NCLB doctrine. It's the test and reward vs. test and punishment formula that hasn't worked for the past 10 years. Schools and districts are rewarded or penalized with cash based on student performance on standardized tests. Inevitably, schools that have high test scores already have many resources at their disposal, which is why their students are excelling. Poor-performing schools are usually those that are already underfunded, overworked, understaffed, overcrowded, and underresourced.What do you think the outcome of any "standardized testing" is going to be? The inevitable, of course. The high testing schools with lots of resources get all the accolades and funding, and the low-end schools get the shaft once again--the very schools that need the funds in order to improve. It's a Catch-22. The government calls this madness a way to identify "highly effective teachers." I call it a highly effective way to burn teachers out.

Today is the deadline for states to submit proposals to the Fed for ed-bucks, and there are six "Priorities" or areas that states must commit to developing in order to get the coveted dollars. You can read about it here. Georgia's Gov. "Sonny" Purdue is on board "whole hog" *ahem* to show Big Bro' that he is willing to spin Duncan's rhetoric in Georgia's plan in order to get the RT3 money. One of the big changes Purdue appears to be putting in his proposal is a new teacher compensation plan that relies on teacher efficacy to justify salary increases rather than the amount of education and tenure that a teacher has. I have no problem with this, prima facie. Pay for performance sustains a healthy meritocracy. However, Mr. Slade told me yesterday that he's been informed that teacher salaries will take the following hits 2010-11: (1) an annual three percent salary reduction and (2) additional mandatory unpaid furlough days. Furthermore, teachers will have to manage an teacher:student ratio increase from 32 to 35 students in an effort to eliminate the number of teachers needed as well. I have difficulty understanding how cutting the number of teachers, the so-called monetary compensation of teachers, and then increasing the workload of teachers is going to have any positive impact on the level of efficacy that Duncan/Obama/Perdue are demanding from educators. I might also add that there is a call for the amount of instructional time in the school year to be increased as well, which means longer hours in the classroom for the teachers too.

I recently heard Duncan saying "without the great teachers there is no democracy in America" (paraphrasing), and that's why good teachers are so important. Well, unless you are solely moved by the need to perpetuate democracy in America, a new generation of young people—predominately motivated by materialism—is not going to be very impressed by the possibilities of a career in education. Why would they want to experience near-poverty and incredibly long work hours within a profession that requires the management 35-40 teenagers (for those us in secondary ed.) whose parents generally blame the teacher if their kids graduate from high school only knowing how to bubble in circles on a Scantron answer sheet.

I don't really know what my point is here (I guess I'm venting), but I can tell you that I feel very anxious. I feel the devil in the deal. The Van Halen song, "Running with Devil" seems like a good title song to describe Duncan's "Race to the Top." Research, fact-based educational strategies are great, but it's not that simple. Methods that continue to perpetuate the brainwashing of students into standardized, test-taking robots just doesn't feel like the way to the top of a democratic society. A by-the-numbers evaluation program is what Aldus Huxley described as an army of drones in Brave New World. I'm not suggesting we are at that point yet, but as Huxley pointed out in Brave New World Revisited, "Children, as might be expected, are highly susceptible to propaganda" (67). I see the "herd mentality" in the kids that I teach. They have really been "conditioned" to strive for certain test scores or rankings instead of developing critical thinking skills. Is this not eerily like the stale, generic masses depicted in Huxley's novel? I fear the the devil lies in the formation of a society that places greater value on a methodology of programmed learning rather than a process of thinking and discovery.