"Boards of education are criticized for their elite membership, In other words, their membership primarily is drawn from the professional and business groups in the local community." (Spring 153)
We discussed this earlier, but I find this elitist gap an interesting problem. Certainly being composed of wealthier white community members creates a board that is out of touch and not representative of the actual community. In addition, most board members probably do not have a background in education. Communities are looking to these people to make decisions regarding local education when they are out of touch with both the community and the educational system. I wonder how we might fix this. I had suggested that this is a problem that results from the process of electing board members - in other words, those with more money and influence in the community are going to inevitably be elected. But removing public input hardly alleviates this problem.
"For-profit education companies claim to offer citizens greater control over the education of their children by expanding the notion of choice to include competition." (Spring 165)
I am extremely skeptical of the motives of any organization that is for-profit, even more so when claims are made that the product is for the public good. Schooling should not be competitive in any sense, because competition implies there are winners and losers. Who are the losing students when competition occurs in education? The underprivileged and minority students of course. The motivation of any for-profit group is first and foremost profit. It's not that these companies can't enact good educational practices, but everything they are doing should be scrutinized.
"One answer is that teachers find their greatest reward in interacting with students." (Spring 205)
It bothers me any time someone suggests people go into teaching for the benefits or pay. Spring fairly clearly lays out statistics that show how teaching benefits lag behind those of other professions. being in this program, I know that the number one reason I am going in to teaching is because I want to teach; I get an emotional and spiritual satisfaction out of the act of teaching and interacting with students and exploring concepts of knowledge. Critics of teachers rarely seem to understand that most teachers genuinely want to teach. If you have not, I suggest you watch the following video from the Save Our Schools Rally: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFHJkvEwyhk. In it, Matt Damon defends teachers as people who do not ultimately care about the benefits or job security - they care about the students. Undoubtedly there are bad teachers, but then again there are bad people in any profession as Matt bluntly points out. The vast majority of people in teaching are good and want to teach.
Schools should definitly be for all students winning and the only competition should be against yourself for personal growth. So many times in life we will compare ourselves to others in the way we look, how much money we make and how much we have, our relationships etc. We should not pressure students to start this mentality early and it is not healthy. They are already judging each other and picking out social groups and such- the last thing we need to do is encourage a divide amongst them and a feeling of inadequacy.
ReplyDeleteCompetition seems to be one of the defining traits of consumer culture. And competition can be alright in healthy doses. It can drive research teams to work harder, student athletes to train harder, aspiring teacher to work on personal growth as an educator in hopes of landing a job. But all too often it can get out of control. Should entire school systems be competing against each other for funding? Such a competition produces losing students - an entire school system of them. Competition can be a very ugly part of American culture that we need to treat carefully.
ReplyDeleteexactly- Race To the Top is such a mean and competitive program- and it is so demanding!Schools have even less freedom and schools should work together, not against each other! Competition will always be a part of society- but as Dr. Pancsofar taught us last year, in the classroom, all should be winners. I also think that we are not taught to compete against ourselves- this can help us grow to be the best we can be and measure ourselves by personal growth.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting way of explaining it. Competition can be utilized as an internal drive to make one want to better oneself. Competition can be harmful when it emphasizes the idea of one individual outperforming another. As an education policy, Race to the Top is awful because it prescribes to that notion of one entity competing against another. Ultimately, the school who matches more closely what the race officials (the federal education officials) want is the one that will win. It doesn't really relate to good or bad teaching at all, merely which school can meet criteria set out at a federal level.
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