It is difficult to understand how Barack Obama can reconcile his vision of change with Duncan's history of supporting a corporate vision for school reform and a penchant for extreme zero-tolerance polices - both of which are much closer to the retrograde policies hatched in conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institution, Fordham Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, than to the values of the many millions who voted for the democratic change he promised. As is well known, these think tanks share an agenda not for strengthening public schooling, but for dismantling it and replacing it with a private market in consumable educational services. At the heart of Duncan's vision of school reform is a corporatized model of education that cancels out the democratic impulses and practices of civil society by either devaluing or absorbing them within the logic of the market or the prison. No longer a space for relating schools to the obligations of public life, social responsibility to the demands of critical and engaged citizenship, schools in this dystopian vision legitimate an all-encompassing horizon for producing market identities, values and those privatizing and penal pedagogies that both inflate the importance of individualized competition and punish those who do not fit into its logic of pedagogical Darwinism.
Read more about acclaimed mime and author, Tony Montanaro.
The improvisers come equipped with a certain repertoire of skills and tricks, and they look for opportunities to showcase these skills. Some improvisers bring their own ‘safety nets’ with them—backup plans just in case something goes “wrong.”Montanaro stresses the importance of working with what is happening in the improvisation, “Nothing should be thrown away or ignored simply because it doesn’t meet your expectations or accentuate your strengths." This is similar to Heathcote’s notion of accepting and working with what the students suggest to her, without judgment, knowing that we can always uncover universal meaning in the way we work with and reflect on the topic students have chosen for the drama.
These improvisers are expecting something from their improvisation; they are planning its future. If the improvisation happens to take them into an area of ‘weakness,’ they break the improvisation and follow Plan B—the safe route.
is an amazing and inspiring book that is truly applicable to its title: life and art. (A few excerpts from an academic paper I wrote are below.)When we face our emptiness and look at it from the outside, it may indeed appear frightening or alarming, but when we move in and actually become empty, we’re surprised to suddenly find ourselves most powerful and effective. For only empty, without entertainment or distracting internal dialogue, can we be instantaneously responsive to the sight, the sound, the feel of the work in front of us.Life is about continually valuing our unfinished work and responding to its ups and downs, finding strength within emptiness.
President-elect Barack Obama has said he believes the arts are good for people. During his campaign, one of his ideas was to create an Artist Corps — a kind of Peace Corps for artists who would work in low-income schools and communities.More background on Gallagher's idea and Obama's arts interest:
But what would this actually look like?
There's already a model being developed for musicians called MusicianCorps. Kiff Gallagher's idea would be similar to AmeriCorps — in exchange for a year or two of service teaching in schools and after-school programs, musicians would get health care and a living stipend. Gallagher has the attention of Obama's transition team.
He also has the attention of private industry — the Hewlett Foundation gave MusicianCorps a $500,000 grant for a pilot program in the San Francisco Bay Area.
December 17, 2008 at 2:00 PM EST, 1:00 PM CST, 12:00 PM MST, 11:00 AM PST
(90 minutes)
Many children in the United States have little or no opportunity for formal arts instruction so access to arts learning experiences remains a critical national challenge. Additionally, the quality of arts learning opportunities that are available to young people is a serious concern. Understanding this second challenge – the challenge of creating and sustaining high quality formal arts learning experiences for K-12 youth, inside and outside of school – is the focus of a recent research initiative, The Qualities of Quality: Excellence in Arts Education and How to Achieve It, commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and conducted by Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.P.S. Speaking of Project Zero, this is cute...
The study focuses on the character of excellence itself and asks three core questions: (1) How do arts educators in the United States—including leading practitioners, theorists, and administrators-- conceive of and define high quality arts learning and teaching? (2) What markers of excellence do educators and administrators look for in the actual activities of art learning and teaching as they unfold in the classroom? And (3) How does a program’s foundational decisions, as well as its ongoing day-to-day decisions, impact the pursuit and achievement of quality? In this webinar, we will share the findings of this study and introduce some of the tools developed by the research team for use by practitioners committed to examining and improving the quality of the arts learning experiences they provide for young people.
Presenter: Steve Seidel, Director, Harvard Project Zero and Director, Arts in Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
If this doesn't sound like a typical class, that's because it isn't. These aren't your typical teachers; they are substitutes. And they aren't your typical substitute teachers, either -- they're Super Subs.
The brainchild of Barboza, a retired teacher, the Super Subs program is a way to bring arts and music to underserved students. Barboza recruited a group of friends -- some of whom once played together in a semiprofessional band -- to be the subs. At first, the idea was to give back to schools in the community where they all grew up. But after experiencing success at their local schools, they decided to take their show on the road.
Here's how it works: Barboza and the twenty other musicians, artists, writers, and designers he's recruited take over classes for the day. They teach their own brand of music, art, writing, journalism, and self-esteem. The visits don't cost schools a dime. The Personal News Network, a social-media Web site run by one of the Super Subs, picks up the tab, and most of the Super Subs volunteer their time.
"Our kids don't necessarily get experiences like this. You know how when you think back to high school, there were a few days when something happened that you really remember as being great? I want this to be one of those days for these kids."But why can't they have this every day? Wouldn't it be great if all (or at least most) learning could create great, memorable, transformative experiences?
EDUCATION:More info:
Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she has launched the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and the School Redesign Network. Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of school reform, teaching quality and educational equity. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and member of the executive board of the National Academy of Education. She has been a leader in the standards movement, chairing both the New York State Curriculum and Assessment Council as it adopted new standards and assessments for students and the Interstate New Teachers Support and Assessment Council (INTASC) as it developed new standards for teachers. From 1994-2001, she served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, a blue-ribbon panel whose 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, was named in 2006 as one of the most influential affecting U.S. education, and Darling-Hammond was named one of the nation's ten most influential people affecting educational policy. She received her BA from Yale University, magna cum laude, in 1973 and her Doctorate in Urban Education from Temple University in 1978. She began her career as a public school teacher.
Teachers and students (leadership and people), content on reality, are both Subject, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge. As they attain this knowledge of reality through common reflection and action, they discover themselves as its permanent re-creators. (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 2007)Another of my favorite essays that's only somewhat related: William Deresiewicz's The Disadvantages of an Elite Education."
Reach All - Teach All
Social Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century Panel DiscussionPart of the Target First Saturdays at the Brooklyn MuseumSaturday, December 6, 2008, 8 p.m.Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art Forum, 4th FloorFree tickets available at the Visitor Center at 7 p.m.Panelists:Toni Blackman – Founder, Lyrical EmbassyAlice Mizrahi – Co-Founder, Younity CollectiveToofly – Co-Founder, Younity Collective
they can meet with other teenagers wearing hijabs or yarmulkes, who are Muslim, Jewish or Christian, and talk — or text — about pizza, goofing off, television and the Jonas Brothers. Asked what was the most important lesson he had learned from getting to know young people of other faiths, Ibrahim, son of the imam, said without hesitation, “I learned they’re just like me.”
talkin `bout….teaching truth to power, will focus on how educators can teach about injustice and inequality to a group with an identity of privilege (for example, teaching about racism to white people, teaching about sexism to men, teaching about heterosexism to straight people etc.). Most Americans have at least one identity of power—male, middle-class, straight, American citizen, white, Christian etc. How do we confront the issue of privilege with students? What are the challenges and benefits of this work? Is it possible to teach someone out of their power?
Obama began forming his culture plank in the spring of 2007, long before winning the Democratic nomination. He brought together a committee of artists and arts professionals, headed by Hollywood writer, director and producer George Stevens Jr. and Broadway producer Margo Lion.
The committee's members include novelist Michael Chabon, Broadway director Hal Prince, musicians Eugenia and Pinchas Zukerman, Museum of Modern Art president emerita Agnes Gund, as well as Lynch, of Americans for the Arts.
The committee developed a program that advocates: the creation of an "Artists Corp'' of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and communities; the expansion of public- private partnerships to increase cultural-education programs; increased funding for the NEA; a commitment to ``cultural diplomacy''; attracting foreign talent in the arts; and providing health care to artists.I'd been thinking about the need for an artist corp to address the lack of arts opportunities for particularly low-income students, but I guess my idea is a little too late...
“This is not at all a pre-pre-pre SAT,” Lee Jones, a College Board vice president, said at a news conference. “It’s a diagnostic tool to provide information about students’ strengths and weaknesses.”Do we really need yet another test? Especially when the SAT is not even a reliable tool?
The College Board, which owns the SAT and PSAT, made its announcement when an increasing percentage of high school students are taking the rival ACT and amid mounting concern over what critics call the misuses of the SAT and ACT and other standardized tests in college admissions.
Those critics dismissed the new test for eighth graders as just what Dr. Jones said it was not: “a pre-pre-pre SAT.”
“Who needs yet another pre-college standardized exam when there is already a pre-SAT and the SAT test itself?” said Robert Schaeffer, the public education director of FairTest, a nonpartisan group that has called for colleges and universities to make standardized tests optional for admissions. “The new test will only accelerate the college admissions arms race and push it down onto ever younger children.”
Jefferson school officials began rerouting scores last year at the urging of School Board member Judy Colgan, who feared the system's fledgling advanced studies schools were draining neighborhood schools of their brightest students and consequently lowering those schools' test scores.
The changing demographics come in a school system that is increasingly made up of non-white students.The article references the Ocean Hill-Brownsville conflict that occured 40 years ago. Taking Note's Richard Kahlenberg shares a summary of the events that is very much worth reading. Here's the intro:
Educators and advocates said they have been troubled by the data for several years — and they said they are especially troubled this year, the 40th anniversary of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis, in which black community leaders challenged the city to make school staff more representative of the city.
"We want a school system that values educators who are invested in their students and who reflect the communities of which they are part," a member of the Center for Immigrant Families in uptown Manhattan, Donna Nevel, said.
The Department of Education's executive director for teacher recruitment and quality, Vicki Bernstein, said responsibility for the declining diversity lies with a state requirement that all public school teachers be certified by 2003.
The requirement was introduced in 1998, forcing the New York City public schools to scramble; before 2003, 60% of new teacher hires were uncertified, and 15% of the overall teaching corps in the city was not certified.
School officials said the mandate had a chilling effect on diversity, because the state certifies very few black teachers. According to a state report, in the 2006-07 school year, black people made up just 4% of new certified teachers who identified their race.
New York City public schools opened peaceably again this year, making it all the more remarkable to recall the chaos that rocked the system 40 years ago. On what was to be the opening day, September 9, 1968, the vast majority of city schools were shut down as more than 50,000 New York City public school teachers went out on strike. The day marked the beginning of the first of three walkouts that kept 1.1 million students out of school for a total of 36 days through mid-November, constituting what was at the time the longest and largest series of teacher strikes in American history. The strikes persisted for so long because they were not about teacher salaries and benefits, issues of dollars and cents which can be easily compromised. Rather, they were about different visions of racial justice and the meaning of liberalism.
EW: What are the implications of score inflation for both measuring and attenuating achievement gaps? Because schools serving disadvantaged students face more pressure to increase test scores via the mechanisms you describe, I worry that true achievement gaps may be unchanged - or even growing - while they appear to be closing based on high-stakes measures.The willingness for policymakers to think critically about this question reflects their stake in the ed reform movement.
DK: I share your worry. I have long suspected that on average, inflation will be more severe in low-achieving schools, including those serving disadvantaged students. In most systems, including NCLB, these schools have to make the most rapid gains, but they also face unusually serious barriers to doing so. And in some cases, the size of the gains they are required to make exceed by quite a margin what we know how to produce by legitimate means. This will increase the incentive to take short cuts, including those that will inflate scores. This would be ironic, given that one of the primary rationales for NCLB is to improve equity. Unfortunately, while we have a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting that this is the case, we have very few serious empirical studies of this. We do have some, such as the RAND study that showed convincingly that the "Texas miracle" in the early 1990s, supposedly including a rapid narrowing of the achievement gap, was largely an illusion. Two of my students are currently working with me on a study of this in one large district, but we are months away from releasing a reviewed paper, and it is only one district.
I have argued for years that one of the most glaring faults of our current educational accountability systems is that we do not sufficiently evaluate their effects, instead trusting - evidence to the contrary - that any increase in scores is enough to let us declare success. We should be doing more evaluation not only because it is needed for the improvement of policy, but also because we have an ethical obligation to the children upon whom we are experimenting. Nowhere is this failure more important than in the case of disadvantaged students, who most need the help of education reform.
“Society likes to think that the SAT measures people’s ability or merit,” Mr. Fitzsimmons said. “But no one in college admissions who visits the range of secondary schools we visit, and goes to the communities we visit — where you see the contrast between opportunities and fancy suburbs and some of the high schools that aren’t so fancy — can come away thinking that standardized tests can be a measure of someone’s true worth or ability.”
The Training and Development Agency for Schools is planning to visit London's financial districts in a bid to find people who might re-train as teachers.
The agency (TDA) says the credit crunch has already boosted inquiries about teaching as a career.
Its recruitment website has had a 34% annual increase in traffic.
It also says there has been a 13% increase since last year in the number of people registering an interest in becoming teachers.
Engaging students in pursuit of their own education is possible, and it’s the real “cure”—not just for the crisis of school dropouts, but the larger one of societal dropouts. It requires knowing each other well and having the power to act on that knowledge in respectful ways.
Remedial, illiterate, intellectually deficient—these are the stigmas that define America’s educationally underprepared. Having grown up poor and been labeled this way, nationally acclaimed educator and author Mike Rose takes us into classrooms and communities to reveal what really lies behind the labels and test scores. With rich detail, Rose demonstrates innovative methods to initiate “problem” students into the world of language, literature, and written expression. This book challenges educators, policymakers, and parents to re-examine their assumptions about the capacities of a wide range of students. Already a classic, Lives on the Boundary offers a truly democratic vision, one that should be heeded by anyone concerned with America’s future.
The curriculum includes more than 250 courses and runs the gamut from understanding feng shui and poetry writing to discussions on moral, ethical and philosophical issues and a discourse on women of the progressive era. Informational classes on money management, Internet surfing and medicine also are available.For more information on University Without Walls visit: http://www.dorotusa.org/.
"It gets me out emotionally. It releases me from the four walls around me," said Leeds, who has participated in the program for 12 years. Her fall selections include a course on the life and work of author Doris Lessing and a class on recording personal histories.
While the majority of the students are from the New York area, seniors in Alaska, Iowa and Texas also participate. The oldest was 105, but died last year.
Tough’s book is very hopeful. He cites a large body of evidence to argue that children will never fall behind cognitively if their parents and their environment provide them with enough stimulation and support from the beginning of their lives. This is the case, he says, no matter how poor their parents are, no matter how disadvantaged their circumstances. If we as a society do “whatever it takes,” we can close the achievement gaps and get every student ready for college or a good career.
However, and there is always a however, there is a depressing aspect to Tough’s book. As the author describes the situation, Canada is in complete sympathy with his powerful, wealthy board of directors, which includes hedge-fund billionaires. Not surprising. These directors care only for the numbers, and they don’t care how the schools get them. “The overall goal of the Zone might be liberal and idealistic—to educate and otherwise improve the lives of poor black children—but Canada believed the best way to achieve that goal was to act not like a bighearted altruist but like a ruthless capitalist, devoted to the bottom line.” (p.135).
The first principal of the middle school sounds like you, Deborah; she must have been reading your books. She is a progressive educator who worries about the whole child, about their social and emotional problems, and who wants the children to have a rounded education. But her school doesn’t get the test scores gains that the hedge-fund managers and the New York City Department of Education demand. She is removed and replaced by a KIPP-style principal. The wealthy men who run the board of the Zone are impressed by the KIPP model, which is described by one of them as “more of a military-style, real rote-learning, rote-behavior discipline thing,” because this model “delivered results.”
The new principal begins a regimen of test-prep, test-prep, test-prep, no-nonsense discipline. Drill, drill, drill. I won’t spoil the book for you by giving away the outcome, but I can only say that the school part of the book’s message was startling. Do poor black and Hispanic kids really need to be in “no excuses” schools that insist on rote learning and rote behavior? That take control of their lives and change their culture? Should this be the model for education for children of color in big cities? This was the message of Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom’s book "No Excuses," and it was echoed by a recent book by David Whitman, "Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism."
1. BOB LYNCH - PRESIDENT & CEO OF AMERICANS FOR THE ARTS
Consensus number one on majority of responses. Flush with cash from the Ruth Lily gifts, Bob has guided expansion of Americans for the Arts initiatives into advocacy, business, research, alliances, arts education, marketing and emerging leadership – building the nation’s largest and strongest arts service provider organization. Clearly the premier spokesperson for the arts sector in America. His seemingly laid- back, diplomatic style belies real ambition for the organization. A true political player – smart, savvy, and boundless enthusiasm.
2. MARION GODFREY – PEW FOUNDATION
Highly respected senior foundation leader much in demand for her thinking acumen and big picture analytical skills. Depth of experience adds to her bona fide creds. She is a voice of authority.
3. BEN CAMERON - DORIS DUKE FOUNDATION
Former TCG head now at Doris Duke Foundation. Power and influence come from oratory skills and keen analytical insights. Much in demand speaker. Huge network of fans. When he speaks, people listen.
4. DICK DEASEY – EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ARTS EDUCATION PARTNERSHIP
Long standing arts education leader. Knows the arena as well or better than anyone. Gets out into the field rather than staying office bound. If arts education is, in reality, a separate and distinct sector, he is the head man.
5. ALAN BROWN – PRINCIPAL WOLF BROWN CONSULTING
Likely the most respected independent consultant in the whole arts & culture field. Hugely influential. Respected by arts organizations, funders, artists and other consultants. Current guru of audience development theories.
6. SAM MILLER – EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR LINC (LEVERAGING INVESTMENT IN CREATIVITY)
Pioneer in the burgeoning area of direct artist services. Persuasive case maker, detailed thinker. Very focused. Global traveler and large network of contacts. . Both smart and realistic. Bringing the artist to the decision making table.
7. CLAIRE PEEPS – DURFEE FOUNDATION
Though the Durfee Foundation based in Los Angeles is relatively small, her position as Chair of the Board of Grantmakers in the Arts has given her a large platform and influential voice in helping to shape Foundation agendas. Well liked. Term over soon.
8. DANIEL WINDHAM - WALLACE FOUNDATION
MOY ENG - HEWLETT FOUNDATION
TIM MCCLIMMON – AMERICAN EXPRESS FOUNDATION
SUE COLITON – PAUL ALLEN FOUNDATION
Four prominent leaders of Foundations with arts programs, each with large agenda, huge budget and lengthy experience in the field. Strategic thinkers. Closely watched by other foundation leaders.
9. DANA GIOIA – CHAIR NEA
Chair of NEA always in the Top Ten due to huge impact of funding in rural states and broad grants budget. Bully pulpit used well. Was effective in increasing NEA budget via working well with Congress. As his term is nearly over, his stock is now fading. Lame duck status.
10. JONATHAN KATZ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR NASAA
Long time leader and voice of state arts agencies. Wide network and deep experience. Understands the issues in depth; helps set agendas and priorities. Affable personality makes him accessible and well thought of.
1. Joel Klein, Chancellor, New York City Department of Education
2. Ramon Cortines, Senior Deputy Superintendent, Los Angeles Unified School District
3. Arne Duncan, CEO, Chicago Public Schools
4. Rudy Crew, Superintendent, Miami Dade County Public Schools
5. Carol R. Johnson, Superintendent, Boston Public Schools
6. Arlene Ackerman, The School District of Philadelphia
7. Michelle Rhee, Chancellor, District of Columbia Public Schools
8. Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers
9. Reg Weaver, President, National Education Association
10. Checker Finn, President, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
Okay, here's five more, that cross the threshold from power to influence:
11. Cyrus Driver, Deputy Director, Education and Scholarship, The Ford Foundation
12. Sarah Cunningham, National Endowment for the Arts
13. David Shookhoff, Manhattan Theater Club/New York City Arts Education Roundtable
14. Gigi Antoni, Big Thought of Dallas
15. Eric Booth, Consultant
We know nothing of childhood; and with our mistaken notions the further we advance the further we go astray. The wisest writers devote themselves to what a man ought to know, without asking what a child is capable of learning. They are always looking for the man in the child, without considering what he is before he becomes a man.When we define education with a focus on outcomes, industry, and workforce, we forget about educating the whole child and rather than attempting to make children adults. What about entering into their world and learning with them?
"Ford Motor Company would not have survived the competition had it not been for an emphasis on results. We must view education the same way," the U.S. Secretary of Education declared in 2003.
The situation for urban young people in today's China, from preschoolers on up, is this: Your entire future hinges on one test, the national college entrance exam—China's magnified version of the SAT. The Chinese call it gao kao, or "tall test," because it looms so large. If students do well, they win spots at China's top universities and an easy route to a middle-class lifestyle. If not, they must confront the kind of tough, blue-collar lives their parents faced. With such high stakes, families dedicate themselves to their child's test prep virtually from infancy. "Many people come home to have dinner and then study until bed," says Liu. "You have to do it to go to the best university and get a good job. You must do this to live."
- Prejudice is like a hair across your cheek. You can't see it, you can't find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feeling of it is irritating. --Marian Anderson, opera singer
- No government has the right to tell its citizens whom to love. The only queer people are ones that don't love anybody. --Rita Mae Brown, author and activist for gay rights
- I don't think anybody anywhere can talk about the future of their people or of an organization without talking about education. Whoever controls the education of our children controls our future. --Wilma Mankiller, first woman elected Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
The 2008 edition, Given Half a Chance: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males, details the drastic range of outcomes for Black males, especially the tragic results in many of the nation’s biggest cities. Given Half a Chance also deliberately highlights the resource disparities that exist in schools attended by Black males and their White, non-Hispanic counterparts. The 2008 Schott report documents that states and most districts with large Black enrollments educate their White, non-Hispanic children, but do not similarly educate the majority of their Black male students. Key examples:These trends, and others cited in Given Half a Chance, are evidence of a school-age population that is substantively denied an opportunity to learn, and of a nation at risk.
- More than half of Black males did not receive diplomas with their cohort in 2005/2006.
- The state of New York has 3 of the 10 districts with the lowest graduation rates for Black males.
- The one million Black male students enrolled in the New York, Florida, and Georgia public schools are twice as likely not to graduate with their class as to do so.
- Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, South Carolina, and Wisconsin graduated fewer Black males with their peer group than the national average.
- Illinois and Wisconsin have nearly 40-point gaps between how effectively they educate their Black and White non-Hispanic male students.
I have been thinking about Critical Pedagogy in relation to various oppressed groups. If Critical Pedagogy advocates dialogue in its practice, how can we apply critical pedagogy with students with special needs?
What is dialogue? Is it limited to words that we speak or write down on paper? Dialogue can occur in many formats (art, movement, touch, music, presence, assistive technology, etc..) as can be noted from all of the different blogs on the site. What all dialogue must have in common is love (Freire's radical love) compassion, and humility with an overriding motivation for social justice. McLaren and Jaramillo (2007) state, "The longing for dignity and justice for others, as well as for ourselves, has been a primary motivation for critical educators worldwide to engage in the politics and practice of critical pedagogy" (p. 196).
Our concept of dialogue expands with critical pedagogy. What are all of the ways we might engage in dialogue with people? I ask this because I do not have the answers myself and it is an issue that I seek more knowledge for, especially given that I have a daughter with autism and I have seen her struggle with trying to communicate something she so desperately wants to say, but it stays locked up in her brain anyway, until she cries out in frustration.
We also need to expand how labels and diagnostics define people's capabilities; the ideal would be no labels at all. Setting limits based on a Cartiesian ontology is a tragic error and serves to keep people locked into confined spaces from which they might otherwise escape (Kincheloe, 2006). A perfect example is the IQ test and allowing it to tell us what a person cannot do. Kincheloe (2006) states, "Since the self is always in context and in process, no final delineation of a notion such as ability can be determined. Thus, we are released from the rugged cross of I.Q. and such hurtful and primitive colonial conceptions of 'intelligence'" (Contructing a Critical Ontology, para. 2). This requires us to step outside the boxes we have constructed and to look through different frameworks or lenses.
Professor Giroux, all my life I felt the things you talked about. I just didn't have a language to express what I have felt. Today, I have come to realize that I do have a language. Thank you.
The first disadvantage of an elite education... is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you. Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race. With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals. At the same time, because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it.Elite colleges and universities pride themselves in opening up doors to their students. But what doors are they closing?
If one of the disadvantages of an elite education is the temptation it offers to mediocrity, another is the temptation it offers to security. An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed. We live in a society that is itself so wealthy that it can afford to provide a decent living to whole classes of people who in other countries exist (or in earlier times existed) on the brink of poverty or, at least, of indignity. You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort. You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life?I realize that I am just about to quote the whole article, so read it for yourself.
Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.
The disadvantage of an elite education is that it’s given us the elite we have, and the elite we’re going to have.
"In the military, I would fight for someone else's perception of what is right and wrong, and I don't want that," said Jarel March, of East New York, a student at Williamsburg Preparatory High School.
"In Against Schooling, Stanley Aronowitz passionately raises an alarm about the current state of education in our country. Discipline and control over students, Aronowitz argues, are now the primary criteria of success, and genuine learning is sacrificed to a new educational militarism. In an age where school districts have imposed testing, teachers must teach to test, and both teacher and student are robbed of their autonomy and creativity. The crisis extends to higher education, where all but a few elite institutions are becoming increasingly narrowly focused and vocational in their teaching. With education lacking opportunity for self-reflection on broad social and historical dynamics, Against Schooling asks “How will society be able to solve its most pressing problems?” Aronowitz proposes innovative approaches to get schools back on track."“The changes made to the SAT did not substantially change how predictive the test is of first-year college performance,” the studies said.
College Board officials presented their findings as “important and positive” confirmation of the test’s success.
“The new SAT was supposed to be significantly better and fairer than the old one, but it is neither,” said Robert Schaeffer, the public education director at FairTest, a group that is critical of much standardized testing. “It underpredicts college success for females and those whose best language is not English, and over all, it does not predict college success as well as high school grades, so why do we need the SAT, old or new?”
“Given the data released today, what was the point of all the hoopla about the SAT’s revisions beyond preserving their California market?” Mr. Schaeffer said. “This is all spin. It’s been a marketing operation from the get-go.”
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