Final blog

As I thought back on all the discussions we have had in this class, I tried to come up with a word or phrase that could summarize how I felt about it.  The one word that keeps coming back to me is that it made me think.  Although this word may seem simplistic, I think it fits the nature of a philosophy class.  Even though I was aware of most of the out of school factors since I have been teaching for many years and have experienced first hand some of the baggage that my students come to school carrying, it was interesting and informative to discuss them in depth.  I teach eighth graders and do not often think about the circumstances of the child's birth or environmental factors that still influence that child's education.  Family and neighborhood factors are obvious but are things we should still always remember when teaching our students.   I also enjoyed the debate that I took part in on extending the school day or year.  Researching that topic helped me realize how many factors must be analyzed before just concluding that the school day or year needs to be lengthened.  It is easy to say students will perform better academically and learn more if the day or year is extended, but there are so many other things that need to be examined before actually implementing such a plan.  School funding is certainly one of those factors that need to be closely looked at before a school or district can extend the day or year.  As we hear about more and more budget cuts, teacher layoffs, and school closings in the past few weeks, I have to wonder: where would this money come from to increase the length of the day or year?  Teachers and staff would have to be compensated and the costs of more materials for the students for the year would have to be taken into consideration.  It is a great idea to keep our most at-risk students in school longer, but it always comes down to funding before a final decision can be made.  

As I stated earlier, this class made me really think about the things that affect our schools and students.  During the school year, we are often so caught up in our day-to-day lives and our busy school day, we do not take the time to think about all of the factors that affect our students and our teachers.  I hope I will always be able to remember these discussions from this class and stay current with these events.  I think it will make me a better teacher and that is always best for our students.  

Merit pay for teachers

Merit pay for teachers is a controversial subject that can lead to heated arguments.  Unions think the idea of merit pay is unfair to teachers and too difficult to implement equitably.  But is there a way to implement merit pay fairly for teachers?  According to Bobby Anne Starnes, out of all of the talk about education reform, teacher merit pay should not be the highest on the list.  She relates education reform through teacher merit pay to blaming tellers for the banking industries failures. (http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.nl.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=3&hid=105&sid=f6bcbf43-bf62-4fa3-a69e-6eb5972e24ca%40sessionmgr102)  "Of all the actors in schools and schooling, of all the people in the hierarchy, are teachers the ones who should be singled out?  They, who are never included in making decisions about how schools operate?"  I find this quote to be quite true.  The people in charge of administrative decisions have rarely ever been in the classroom or have been so far removed from the classroom, they have no clue what it is like to be in the front lines of teaching.  

So will implementing merit based pay increase student performance?  Because that is really what merit pay is all about.  It is not about teacher performance but it is all about increasing students' test scores.  Teachers do not enter the profession thinking they will become wealthy.  I have never heard a teacher say they would work harder or teach better if they were payed more.  If pay for teachers is tied to performance on standardized testing, how are teachers evaluated that teach subjects that do not get tested such as physical education, music, art, and sometimes even social studies?  In an article in The Washington Post, Jay Matthews worries that with an individual pay-for-performance, it becomes every teacher for herself or himself.  Teachers lose the sense of team work if they think every little thing they do is going to affect their salary.  

Most teachers I know work hard to give their students a great education.  They are not in it for the money.  They come to work early and they leave well after they are off the clock.  Would merit pay really change them into even better teachers?  I do not think it would have any affect on their teaching performance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/31/AR2009053102236.html?hpid=sec-education

Privatizing schools

After reading the article for last week's assignment, I decided to write about privatizing schools even though I have already blogged about school vouchers.  In one article I read, privatization was defined as "the act of reducing the role of government or increasing the role of the the private sector in an activity or the ownership of assets". (http://www.aft.org/topics/privatization/index.htm)  Is this really the direction we want our schools to go? 

In the article by Friedman, he states that the only way to improve our current education system is through privatization. He believes that our schools need to be handed over to private individuals or enterprises and that in turn will force improvement of our school systems.  I could not disagree more with this.  He believes that using vouchers for school will lead to a large demand for private schools thus increasing the privatization process.  How will this help our schools or our low income students that attend these schools?  Even with vouchers, most low income students still could not afford to attend a private school.  Friedman is also under the assumption that our schools are so horrible because of the teachers, etc.  He never mentions all of the out of school factors that kids arrive at school with that disrupts their learning.    He also thinks that there should not be any conditions attached to the vouchers.  I just don't understand how that could work.  If there are not any conditions, how will these private schools be assessed?  Privately run schools will not have to have their records open to the public.  How will this help our public schools? I just do not agree with privatizing public schools.  I think we need to improve the education of our students in low performing schools through other methods.  

http://www.aft.org/topics/privatization/pitfalls.htm

Teaching morality in schools

As I was reading articles about teaching morality in public schools, I was actually surprised that there was even a debate about it.  Isn't it the teachers' responsibilities (in addition to parents) to teach our kids right from wrong?  I certainly thought it was.  From the time kids enter preschool, they are taught to share, take turns, not to take things that don't belong to them, say 'please' and 'thank you', wait your turn, listen politely when your classmates are talking, etc.  Aren't these examples of teaching morality in school?  I found in my readings, though, that people tend to mix up teaching morality with teaching religion in school.  In an article by Steven D. Schafersman, (http://www.freeinquiry.com/teaching-morals.html) he states that people opposed to teaching morality in schools believe that it is akin to sneaking religion into public schools by the religious right.  Teaching kids to be good people though does not have to be about religion and that is where the debate starts.  Schafersman also states that the moral philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle based their ethical systems on the same thing humanist philosophers today do:  a happy conscience, a successful and productive life, and the harmonious working of society.  So why is there such a problem with teaching these values to kids in school?  I think that again people tend to think people are pushing religious beliefs on their children when we start talking about teaching morality in school.  That is why it is referred to as 'character education' now.  The U.S. government's website from the Department of Education (http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/character/brochure.html, )defines character education as "a learning process that enables students and adults in a school community to understand, care about and act on core ethical values such as respect, justice, civic virtue and citizenship, and responsibility for self and others".  As teachers, I think we are teaching these values every day or at least I hope we are.  Does it have to be a formal process?  I don't think so but I do not see anything wrong with it if morality is taught as a formal 'character education' class.  

Intelligence debate

The intelligence debate has been around for a long time and does not seem to be going away any time soon although it seems to come and go as a 'hot' issue.  As I see it, there are basically two camps in the intelligence issue: you are born with an innate amount of intelligence or your environment affects your intelligence.  Many refer to this simply as nature versus nurture.  A book called "The Bell Curve" by Herrnstein and Murray is probably the most controversial book written on the subject.  Although it was written in 1994, it still is the cause of many hot debates on the topic because it questions how much the problems in modern society could be explained by intelligence.  The word intelligence itself is a difficult word to define because it evokes so many connotations for people.  Is it something that is mathematically measurable?  Scientists and researchers have been debating this for years and hence the controversy.  I read an article called "Intelligence:  Heredity-Environment Debate Resolved?" (http://www.unisci.com/stories/20021/0117021.htm).  These authors suggest that intelligence is created when connections in the brain are changed in response to environmental cues.  They also say that these connections must be made in childhood because the capacity to respond to the environment stops at maturity.  They reason that this is why young children are able to learn multiple languages whereas adults have a more difficult time learning a new language.  

I think that people are born with an innate intelligence that can be fostered to become greater with one's environment.  Once again, though, the out of school factors must come into play.  If a child does not acquire enough language in the the first few years of life, it is a fact that the child will have a difficult time in school.  This would coincide with the belief that these neurons in the brain did not make the connections during this critical learning time and therefore would definitely affect one's intelligence.  Herrnstein and Murray suggest though that a person is born with a certain amount of intelligence and nothing can change that.  They believe that heredity play a major role in intelligence has little or nothing to do with the environment.   I have to disagree with that.  Although I agree that heredity must play some part in one's intelligence, environment must play a part too.  

School vouchers

I was having a hard time deciding what to blog about this week and was looking for articles when I started reading about school vouchers.  Since my kids all attended private schools, you would think that I am all for vouchers but it is not that easy to decide when you examine all the issues.  First of all, vouchers really don't cover all the expenses of a private education so will they really offer a choice to inner city kids?  From what I've read, (http://www.adl.org/vouchers/vouchers_main.asp) vouchers usually range from $2500 - $5000.  Private school tuition can cost anywhere from $4000 - $20,000 so the parents would still have to come up with the balance.  In reality, is this truly an option for low-income parents?   

I do disagree with the article's opinion that "vouchers pose a serious threat to values that are vital to the health of American democracy".  The author states that vouchers would be used to "indoctrinate" children with narrow parochial agendas.  Not all private schools are oriented toward a particular religion.  He also states that public education is for all students regardless of religious affiliation, academic talents, or the ability to pay a fee.  Where do magnet schools fit in to this statement?  Public schools like Whitney Young have enrollment based solely on academic talent and therefore is not open to all students.  Schools such as Young do not even allow students to apply that do not have a particular stanine on standardized tests.  I have taught students that had straight A's but did not score particularly well on the ISAT so were never even given a chance to attend that school.  This seems to contradict the statement that public schools are for all students.  A voucher might actually help those students attend an academically challenging private school.   

He also states that vouchers would allow tax payer money to go to schools run by the KKK and other such extremist groups.  I have never heard of a KKK school and I hardly think they would start up a school just because vouchers were available.  People that are part of racist or extremist groups teach their own form of hatred at home.  I think it's a stretch when he says that Brown vs. Board of Education would be tossed out because the money from vouchers would be used to deliberately segregate schools.  

I don't know what the answer is when questioning if vouchers are a good idea, but I do know that many of our inner city and poorest schools are in extreme need of help and something does need to be done for the students attending these schools. 

Same sex schools

As I was trying to decide what to write my blog on this week and after looking over topics from the syllabus, I decided to write about something that is close to my family.  My youngest daughter is graduating from an all girls school as did I and her two older sisters.  My son will be attending an all boys high school in the fall.  My husband also attended an all boys high school.  What made us decide to attend these schools and send our children to them?  I not sure there was really a debate about it.  It was just expected that my kids would attend same sex schools.  I did briefly look into public schools but the ones I would want my kids to attend were just too far.  Plus I like the sense of community I received and  I think my girls received from attending a same sex school.  I have been friends with girls from high school for more than twenty-five years.  Is this because of the religious affiliation or because of gender?  I think maybe a bit of both but since my kids are not particularly religious, I would have to lean more towards the argument that it was because they attended a same sex school.  The argument against same sex schools is that these kids will eventually be in the 'real' world and have to coexist and work and live with others of the opposite sex and they do not learn how to do that in same gender schools.  An article on Instructor Web (http://www.instructorweb.com/doc/coeducationalschool.asp), describes pros and cons of same sex schools.  I took issue with one statement that said "almost everyone today believes that coeducation is by far the best choice for students in their teens, because it recognizes that the two genders live, work, and play together in the real world".  I am not sure who 'everyone' is but I think the author needs to visit the south side of Chicago and see firsthand how many kids attend same sex schools.  Is this an anomaly just for this particular geographic area?  Perhaps, but it does not mean that these students are not getting the best education and do not learn how to interact with members of the opposite sex.  I realize these are not public schools and not everyone can afford to send their kids or do not want to since these schools are affiliated with a particular religion.  In another article I read, it that stated these schools exclude people of opposing beliefs.  This is not true.  The schools my family attended accept kids of different religions.   I attended a same sex high school and then went on to a public university and graduated in four years.  Did I have a difficult time interacting with members of the opposite sex?  Absolutely not.  My girlfriends and I had a group of guy friends from various all boy high schools and had many male friends in college also.  In fact, many of them are still my friends today. 

I think same sex schools allow kids to be themselves without having to worry about how they look, how smart they appear to the opposite sex, and all the other normal sexual tensions that teenagers have.  They can just be themselves for those six hours a day and not worry about if some boy or girl likes them.  Another article I read stated that girls learn better without boys around.  They "thrive" in that environment, speak more freely , and have more teacher contact and academic acknowledgment.  (http://educationalissues.suite101.com/article.cfm/samesex_schooling_pros_and_cons) In the same article though, it stated that girls program are underfunded compared to boys.  In my experience, this was the practice when I attended school but it was also true in coed public schools.  Until Title IX came into existence this was the fact across the country.   This is not true today.  The school my girls went to has some of the best sports and extracurricular programs in the state.  It is an academically challenging school and 99% of the girls go on to college.  Do they end up not graduating because they can't handle being around males and don't know how to coexist?  Absolutely not.  My daughter is graduating from college this weekend and all of her friends that she attended high school with are also graduating this spring.  And they attended coed colleges.  So much for the theory that they will not learn how to live in the real world with males.  

I am not sure how this could work in a public school setting. I know there are some schools that give parents the choice to place their children in a single sex classroom at the grade school level but these schools have to allow them the choice to learn in a traditional coed class.  Not all schools could offer this option due to space constraints.  You also have to have teachers that are willing to work in that environment or it would just not work.  There are also some public high schools in Chicago that offer this option.  This article gives some viewpoints on same gender classes in the public schools:  http://www.singlesexschools.org/chicago_Jan07.htm.  Another article that might be of interest to you discusses particular same sex schools and schools with same sex classrooms.  http://www.brighterchoice.org/fileadmin/user_upload/report.pdf