I heard about Campbelll Brown on Twitter, and then I saw her on the Colbert Report.
I was really sad to see Campbell Brown talk.
She simplified education issues to the issue of tenure. She didn't take the time to think of the vast diversity of context that exists with regard to public school. She didn't tackle the issue as it should be tackled community by community, school by school, instead she went right for the teachers.
As an educator I know that schools are complex organizations with lots going on. There are positive endeavors that enrich student learning, and there are challenging issues that take away from student learning. School by school and community by community we have to work together to make a positive difference, and that positive difference is going to come from remedying the issues that create the multiple challenges that exist.
Tenure is an easy issue to rant and rave about from a distance because you really don't have to do much work to rant and rave about tenure. The issues that are really tough to solve are the ones everyone shies away from--issues of buildings that are subpar, teacher's schedules that are overfull, lack of support, poverty, crime, and health issues.
To really get in there and help each school prosper is very challenging work, and the more needs a community has, the greater the work is.
If your child's at private school, it's likely the teacher-student ratios are small, the campus beautiful, and the programming top-notch. It's also likely that most of the children come from homes that are emotionally, physically, and economically able to support those children, and when most families are like that their support often extends to the children who don't get that kind of support in the community thus creating a strong school community.
When a school community is faced by poverty, health issues, crime, and subpar shelter, the challenges are great, very great, and the supports typically are shallow compared to the needs. It's not rocket science to understand why children in private schools and wealthy suburbs tend to do better on tests and other measures than children from challenged neighborhoods, and to throw those statistics at teachers and say it's their fault because of tenure is sad, so, so, so sad and ineffective too.
To really make a difference, people have to get in there and do the hard work--they have to lobby for laws and social programming that actually lift children out of poverty, build beautiful schools, and clean up crime-ridden neighborhoods. They have to help whole families find work, get good educations, and have the kind of health and dental care they need to feel good and be able to support their children. They have to raise the minimum wage so that someone who works 40 hours a week can support a family.
Today's show made me so sad, and made me wonder why she chose this cause when so many other causes exist that truly can make a difference in a child's life.
Multiple initiatives have been employed in the past few years to lift schools up. I believe many of those initiatives have been balanced and successful. This is the way to make change. To rid schools of tenure is to eliminate teacher voice and to accelerate politics in the school community. The vast majority of teachers choose teaching to make a difference in the lives of children. They go through many years of school and training, not to make lots of money, but instead to help children learn. When teachers fail it's often the failure of the structures and supports around them.
It's easy to beat up teachers as we're too busy most of the time to fight back. It's not so easy to really make the time to do the work that matters, work that will positively effect change that lifts children up and helps them succeed.
And I'm also curious, did Brown choose a public school setting for her children?
