“What are you prepared to do?”, gasped the dying Sean Connery character in The Untouchables. His cut-to-the-bone question begs answers as educators struggle today with meaty problems. We know the problems facing educators; they are abundantly clear. We even know viable resolutions. The real issue is this – are we prepared to do what is required to achieve what we want?
Take your pick of these: How should schools fill the gaps in student achievement, some attributable to the pandemic? How should schools treat diverse gender identification? How should schools respond to the politics of book banning and curricular pruning? What is public education’s response to state funding of church-based schools? How should a school respond to racism, prejudice, and discrimination in its community? What are parent rights in the education of children beyond choosing a school for their enrollment? How do we re-instill trust in local public schools?
What do we know?
These and other problems exist, and they afflict our ability to successfully prepare all children for adult life. Most are tangential to teaching and learning yet their presence gets in the way of our daily work with children. Each begins with school governance and filters it down to affect classroom application.
These are not the easy problems of physical infrastructure, such as not enough classrooms or outdated HVAC systems. Once difficult to resolve, we would take on several of these old facility problems in place of one that is new. The new problems are social-cutural-political-economic swamps buttressed by special interest activism. No politely discussed hammer and nail solutions will resolve today’s issues of in-your-face demands of “I want what I want regardless of what you say” confrontations.
Our history reflects three responses when public education perceives a significant problem. These responses are listed in the order of their usual employment, most often to seldom ever.
- Complain about the problem, draw attention to it, then acquiesce to the status quo, accommodate the status quo, and do nothing.
- Ignore the problem. Continue doing what schools usually do hoping the problem will either go away or some other authority will resolve it.
- Find a high ground position to resolve the problem, create a consensus stakeholder solution, and move from the current status quo to a new, hopefully improved status.
In recent months, I added a fourth response.
- In the face of personal attacks on school leaders shaping policy and program as demanded by public demonstrators knowing they do not represent most of the community nor what is best for educating children. Avoid trauma at cost!
I believe that our traditional school board governance with professional educational leadership knows what they should do to resolve contemporary, hot issues. George Orwell told us “All issues are political issues”. Once again, he got it right. Knowing what should be done in the face of “all things are political” is a new and troublesome quandary for our apolitical school leadership. “What are you prepared to do?”, is the question of our day.
A case in point – achievement gaps in reading.
If prepared to do what is necessary, we can. Gaps in student achievement in reading and math preceded the pandemic and were worsened by the pandemic. The answer – stop doing what is not working and start doing what will work. Our state history of dealing with reading achievement gaps was to acquiesce to traditional reading association lobbyists keen on retaining whole language, blended language, and “three cueing” techniques. Historically, we chose to complain and then do nothing when the same old reading instruction did not move the reading gap needle. Instead, our legislature passed a bipartisan reading bill, Act 20, that makes the science of reading principles the official reading curriculum for all children. The Act directs the DPI’s new Office of Literacy to improve new teacher preparation, veteran teacher professional development, and install regional coaching systems to ensure all children all children are being taught using the science of reading principles.
Kudos to Rep. Joel Kitchens and others for authoring the bill and persisting against traditional opposition to passage of Act 20.
Gaps in math achievement.
A similar fix is available for filling traditional and post-pandemic gaps in math achievement. Stop hiring teachers who were good at math as students. Hire teachers who are proficient in pedagogies for teaching math and mathematical reasoning. Too many veteran math teachers were intuitive math students in school. They can demonstrate and explain how they solve math problems, but they cannot explain the mathematical reasoning in ways that non-intuitive children understand and need to apply.
Principals have observed the difference in these two types of teachers for decades and cherish their pedagogically proficient teachers.
Our problem is that while high school math teacher licensing requires a baccalaureate major in mathematics, 4K-8 teachers are generalists requiring minimal post-high school study in mathematics. As instruction in algebra and geometry concepts creeps further into elementary school, few teachers are prepared to explain the math reasoning behind the concepts. Students are then underprepared in understanding why solutions for algebra and geometry problems work when they sit in secondary school math classrooms. As math becomes more complex, their programmed responses to simpler math result in failed test questions.
Are we prepared to insist that every teacher of mathematics must be prepared to teach mathematics not just do mathematics? Complaining or ignoring the problem is not an answer. Creating a high ground consensus of IHEs, local school leaders, and parents can cause a viable resolution to a problem that currently is stuck in the same old, same old. We know what to do and how to do it, if we are prepared to fix the problem of gaps in student math achievement.
Other problems and school sorrows.
The solution story for Act 20 resembled a physical infrastructure problem. We identified a problem, studied solutions, presented, and debated a proposal, ironed out points of disagreement, and concluded with a positive, consensus resolution. Other contemporary problems are not so easy.
School is a complex social, cultural, political, economic, and sometimes educational, organism. It is authorized by our state government and run by a local government, our school board. Once the most even keeled of governance venues, grass roots school board meetings have become battlefields. This is especially accurate for social, cultural, political, economic-blended issues. Consider these:
- Requests to ban books and materials in school libraries and classrooms.
- Non-traditional gender identification.
- Access to school restrooms and locker rooms by students requesting non-traditional gender identification.
- Non-traditional gender identifying and gender-changing student participation in gender-based athletics and activities.
- Use of flags and other identifying symbols other than the US flag, state flag, and other official symbols.
- Assertions of a parental right to override school board policy or school regulations based upon personal demand.
During the pandemic and afterward we observed school boards mired with social, cultural, political, economic issues brought by parents in conflict with CDC guidelines, local health departments rules, and school policies. No one had a game plan or standing policies and in their absence every ruling a school applied was subject to protest. Heated arguments were common, and few settled for “we agree to disagree” settlements. The pandemic grew activism based upon personal points of view.
In the post-pandemic, arguments about vaccines and mitigation shifted to gender identification and gender-based books and school materials, gender transforming student participation in school sports, and the use of non-national and state flags and symbols in school.
Individual school districts used one or more of the four problem responses listed above, some with more success than others. With the start of the 2023-24 school year, conflict on these issues will not dissipate and it will grow.
What are you prepared to do?
“We are a country based on the rule of law” is a statement being used at the national level to discuss resolution of significant challenges to our representative form of democracy. The “rule of law” statement also holds for local school district challenges.
We elect members of our community to represent local interests in the governance of our schools. Much of that governance is the application of federal and state regulations and statutes. It is challenges that are not addressed by legislation and court ruling that create the targets for heated arguments.
The rule of law requires those authorized to establish and execute laws to do so. It also requires those under the jurisdiction of these authorities to comply with their laws and execution of laws. Secondly, the rule of law creates pathways for those in disagreement with the authorities to either bring forward their complaints and/or exercise their lawful opportunities to remove members of the authority through recall or replacement at the next election. Beyond these, the rule of law does not abide authorities who ignore or fail to fulfill their duties or citizenry who choose to defy the established rules or act in ways that prevent the authorities from doing their duties.
“Being prepared to do” means school boards and school leaders cannot complain without action or ignore problems in the hope they will go away or cave in the face of personal attack on the singular demands of activists. Instead, “being prepared to do” means taking all possible action to create higher ground, consensus resolutions and in the absence of full consensus make decisions in keeping with “best practices”.
We have good examples of how “being prepared to do” leads to success in our schools. In memory of a mentor from decades ago, “it is time to pull up our socks and do what needs to be done” and “more than Trix, school is for kids”. There are few problems we cannot resolve when we maintain the integrity of our institutions and act upon best and informed practices. There always may be disagreement, but then that is inherent in a representative democracy.