Quality Education is the Luck of the Draw

I just finished watching "The Lottery" and "Waiting for Superman," two documentaries which chronicle the lives of students and their families who hope to escape their local failing schools for the chance to attend successful charter schools.  In many of the local failing schools, some term as "drop out factories," students are 4-5 grade levels behind, and less that 20% can read at grade level.  The statistics are shocking and infuriating.

-Prisons and jails are built based on the rate of student failure in 4th and 5th grades.  Additionally, we invest about twice as many tax payer dollars into incarcerating young people as on educating them.
-Teachers are so difficult to fire that teachers who are suspended from the classroom for misconduct sit in "rubber rooms" for years collecting their full salary while they await hearings that last about twice as long as they typical criminal hearing.  These "rubber rooms" cost New York state approximately $1 million dollars a year.
-If we could cut the bottom 10% of worst performing teachers and replace them with "average" performing teachers, the United States would skyrocket back to the top of world rankings for industrialized nations (instead of sitting 25th out of 38 nations).

These kinds of atrocities are unforgivable especially since we know that the largest determining factor of student success is not socioeconomics, race, or family support, but rather quality teachers.  We know what needs to be done to reform the education system and we know what works: longer school hours,  rigorous academics, and higher standards for teacher performance.  Charter schools such as Harlem Success Academy work with children in some of the most challenging situations and are able to get 100% of their children to learn and perform at or above standard!

So why are people irrationally wed to an educational system that has proven time and again to fail children.  Both "The Lottery" and "Waiting for Superman" point back to teachers unions.  The teachers unions were developed initially because the majority of female educators were not paid fair wages and were taken advantage of because of gender inequality.  However, the unions today have turned into a collective that protects underperforming teachers.  The reality is that unions are standing in the way of education reform.  In colleges, professors earn tenure after years of teaching and review and some professors never earn tenure.  In public schools, teachers earn tenure in a few short years for surviving and breathing.  Then they can literally sit back, relax with a copy of the Times, and get paid regardless of whether or not their students learn.

It is devastating to watch children and families cross their fingers and say prayers as lotto balls roll out of the cage, or names written on index cards are pulled out of a hat.  Quality education for all children is a right and should not be determined by chance.  In order for this to be the case, we have to be willing to make large changes to a large system.  Personally, I refuse to protect the interests of teachers who are not doing their jobs over the interest of children who want to go to college instead of prison.

Welcome!

Welcome to Learning Space, my new blog about educational reform, learning theory, and classroom practices.  If you are a teacher, parent, concerned mentor, or citizen, you have probably woken up in the middle of the night perseverating over a young person who is falling behind, dropping out, or advancing to adulthood without the support and skills necessary for stability and success.  On the other hand, you may have woken up in the with an exciting, electric idea for a lesson plan, strategy to engage a challenging learner, or insight that helps make sense of the beauty and mess we call "school."  This is my space for cataloging these kind of thoughts that are scribbled on napkins, come to me while driving or taking a shower, and are otherwise lost or silently incorporated into my invisible teacher toolkit.  I hope this space provides food for thought, opportunity for dialogue, and inspires bridge building.
Enjoy!