Happy New Year! Caring for others shines through during the holidays. So, everyone has had time to think about the importance of public education and how we care about all of America’s children.
Ten years ago, I wrote a book called Losing America’s Schools: The Fight to Reclaim Public Education. So, how’s it going?
Here are questions and concerns about public schools going into 2024. We need to discuss these issues. Feel free to add to the list. Your opinions and ideas are valuable. I welcome debate and will listen to those I disagree with if the conversation is respectful.
1. President
It’s a Presidential election year. Will candidates address the importance of public schools? Will the new year bring a leader who will finally set the stage for better public education for all students? Or will they permit corporate reform to end public schooling for good?
2. Curriculum
Will there be a renewed focus in the curriculum on child development, or will expectations continue to be age-inappropriate? In other words, will students continue to be pushed to grow up too quickly to meet the harmful and misconstrued message of A Nation at Risk?
Will public school administrators finally offer supervised but unstructured recess, along with geography and more, creating a balanced learning environment?
Are struggling public schools getting extra government funding to bring the arts back with qualified art teachers?
3. Policy
Isn’t it time to reevaluate the controversial 2010 Common Core State Standards? One can’t say students are doing poorly or that schools need to improve without considering CCSS.
It’s also time to address the problematic effects of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act. Claiming, as some do, that teachers and schools are failing without looking at the cause and effect of these policies on education is a strange omission.
4. Assessment
Why is there still little effort to end high-stakes standardized tests, even for the youngest students?
There’s still concern the tests aren’t developmentally appropriate. Are students set up to fail to make teachers and schools look bad, opening the door to school privatization?
5. Data
Is anyone investigating data collected on children with social-emotional learning (SEL) assessments and online academic programs?
Why are so many personal questions asked on SEL tests? Who gets access to this information, and what are they using it for?
6. Careers
Are career and technical education (CTE) programs related to student needs and interests, or are corporations taking over schools for workers they need, steering students to their programs?
7. Stress
If students have trauma and mental illness, shouldn’t consideration be given to the high level of stress involving schools and the impact of school reforms? Isn’t there a need to make learning more enjoyable?
8. Covid
When will the blame of teachers and public schools surrounding Covid, an unusual disease few understood, be put to rest? Educators must protect children and their families.
Teachers, in their unique positions, worked hard sometimes in poor classroom conditions to do what they believed was right for students. And they’ve worked hard to lift students since that bad time.
9. Reading
Are educators considering the individualized reading needs of children, or are all students getting the same one-size-fits-all programming through commercialized programs?
Which reading programs stand to profit from the new Science of Reading state mandates? Who’s watching how these programs are selected? How many are online and could replace teachers? Where’s the proof that these programs work?
Teachers need to understand how to teach reading. Are universities signing on to commercial programs without focusing on the pedagogy of reading instruction?
Kindergartners are expected to read now by first grade. If they aren’t reading by this time, are they considered learning disabled? It’s time to bring back kindergarten and make it developmentally sound.
How many children with reading disabilities are in inclusion classes, and would a resource class with individual and small group instruction also be helpful?
Will every public school have a well-stocked school library where children can access the reading material they need and a fully qualified school librarian? We know this positively impacts how students do in school.
10. School Boards
Are school boards listening to those who elect them, or are they being manipulated, even appointed, by wealthy outsiders with an anti-public school agenda, like Houston?
How many education leaders have education credentials? Are these positions continuing to be corrupted by wealthy donors wanting to end public schooling?
Will school boards work closely with educators, parents, and the community to choose a history curriculum that reflects the best understanding of our past?
What are school boards doing to bring conservative and liberal parents together regarding book banning? How are public school districts working to bring children together so that students learn to embrace differences and like one another?
11. Research
Are educational research studies legitimate, independent, and scholarly peer-reviewed without bias or driven by think tanks and corporations with ponies in the show?
12. Retention
It’s excellent that Michigan ended third-grade retention. There’s abundant research to show it’s unnecessary and demeaning to students. Will this be the year this terrible practice ends?
Along with this, will this be the year school districts work to reduce class size to manageable levels, critical to helping students with disabilities do well, for student safety so teachers can better learn about students, and also for helping children in the earlier grades learn to read?
The benefits in K-3rd grade are especially understood.
13. School Safety
What innovations will we have to create safer schools? Will we finally see changes to gun laws to make all of us safer?
14. Parents
How are public schools reaching out to parents? Are parents working to get involved in public schools to support teachers and to learn about their needs?
Where’s the PTA? How are they helping to bring parents and teachers together, especially on the tough, controversial issues?
15. Children
Who’s working on getting free dental and health care coverage for young children, and assisting students who are in devasting situations like being homeless or facing hunger?
Children will not do well in school if their basic needs aren’t met.
16. Teachers
Are school districts using the teacher shortage to place unqualified individuals, without credentials, in the classroom?
Why the emphasis on tutors? Tutors can be helpful, but qualified teachers are what students will always need to learn best.
The Kappan reported (read beyond the headline in the link) that many parents are pleased with public schools, so why isn’t the positive side of this discussed more? Shouldn’t there be more attention focused on teachers and the great work they do?
17. Charters
Can we end all nonprofit and for-profit charter schools, and convert the successful ones to schools held accountable within school districts, like alternative schools for educators to run, like Ray Budde’s original plan?
How much money has been lost to disreputable charter schools? Will 2024 be the year those who’ve stolen from public education are held accountable?
Why are some schools, especially charters, permitted to use tax dollars to include religion? What happened to Separation of Church and State?
18. Vouchers
Will there be better scrutiny of vouchers and educational savings accounts? Will prestigious private schools open their doors to poor children with vouchers? Will parents no longer be allowed to purchase frivolous items with tax dollars?
19. Online
Will online programs like Amplify and iReady be held accountable? Will school districts evaluate these programs, or will more students sit for longer hours in front of questionable programs on screens?
20. Corporations
Why are corporations, select politicians, and think tanks, often with those who know little about public schools, allowed to determine how those schools should run and what programs they need?
21. Facilities
What kind of new school buildings are being built, and do they reflect the needs of teachers, or are they designed to end teaching with technology? How are the HVAC systems?
Have the lead pipes been removed from schools, as President Biden promised? Is that in progress?
23. Special Education
How much money is spent on special education? Do parents want to drop the use of the term special education? How does one create an individual educational plan (IEP) if all students must master the same one-size-fits-all standards?
I recently wrote; “It’s nice to think: Well, that was then, but now we have a clean slate, a fresh start. Even when we know, deep in our brains, that next year will be largely composed of the same old sh*t, plus some disconcerting new sh*t and perhaps the occasional good news. Which means that columns about education policy and practice are, if not evergreen, enduring.”
And then you posted this (excellent) piece, proving my point. It’s really hard to shed a bad idea in ed policy, even when its outcomes are undeniably negative, even damaging. The only quibble I’d have with your list? Put “VOUCHERS” first.
Thank you, Nancy! Your blog post certainly did hit the high notes, and we certainly seem to discuss the same awful issues year after year don’t, we?
Vouchers could easily be no. 1. I agree.
These are great categories, with thought provoking questions.
Thanks for commenting, Mary!
Thank you for this important list, Nancy. The one that especially resonates with me as a retired teacher of the deaf, is number 23: “How does one create an individual educational plan (IEP) if all students must master the same one-size-fits-all standards [at the same time]?” Demanding that teachers of special needs students accomplish this is absurd and crazy-making. The fallacy the “reformers” make is that when meeting students where they are in order to support their authentic progress, teachers must dumb-down their curricula. Many of our graduates at the RI School for the Deaf were reading grade levels below their assigned grade as measured by mass administered standardized testing. Yet they were able to attend and graduate from college and go on to productive and satisfying lives. The reformers’ ignorance of the complexity of the learning needs of students with cognitive, sensory, emotional, behavioral, and linguistic challenges literally fills a library. Those with the training, expertise, and experience teaching students with complex needs must have the flexibility to teach in ways that reach their students and scaffold their progress. The other issue that makes my blood boil is providing public tax money to send students to private/religious schools that not only discriminate in accepting students and hiring faculty, but may actually be teaching discriminatory and divisive perspectives in their curricula. This is unacceptable in our democratic, pluralistic society. Parents have the right to provide the type of education they choose for their children, but not at the public’s expense, and not at the expense of dismantling public education for the vast majority of children who depend on it. Public education is a public good that must be protected.
“Complexity of learning needs” should be the phrase of the year. Thanks, Sheila! This one size fits all notion has always bothered me about standards.
Thank you Nancy! I would like to add, When will the Democratic Party realize that full throated support for the public schools, not charters or vouchers, is a political winner. There is significant evidence that families are fed up with the waste of tax payer dollars going to evangelical grifters and charter schools that do not open. Fund the schools at the appropriate level and improvement will;l follow.
Thank you, Paul. I wish they would figure that out.
Comprehensive list, Ms. Bailey. I’m grateful for all the work you put into this. Bookmarking it so I can refer to it through the year.
Great, John! I appreciate your comment. Thank you!