When does doing more with less becoming doing less with less?*

*I can't take credit for the above title. That's former Superintendent Jim Caradonio. But it fits.
I had really hoped that the federal Education department was at least saving us all the cost of a speechwriter for Arne Duncan, since he and Bill Gates seem to be reading the same lines lately, but Rick Hess says that this isn't the case. Duncan's address to the American Enterprise Institute and Gates' address to (gobsmackingly) the state superintendents of education read from essentially the same script: to quote Duncan, districts should:

leverage transformational change in the educational system to improve outcomes for children. To do so, requires a fundamental rethinking of the structure and delivery of education in the United States.

(sic on that comma, and trying to ignore the violence being done to the English language in that whole first line)



To what does this boil down, in the view of Duncan (and Gates, and, for that matter, Commissioner Chester)?

• get rid of seniority and education level pay
• get rid of the "factory model"
• don't worry about class sizes
• "eliminate waste"
• use more technology (Microsoft technology, anyone?)

 In no particular order:
Everyone wants to eliminate waste, but those who usually say this don't then volunteer to pick up a district's budget and start pointing out what they mean. We're shutting computers down at night, using as a cheap and efficient a fuel source as we can, buttoning up buildings to save energy whenever we can squeeze a nickel to do it. We're low-bidding supplies. We're joining forces with other districts on everything from special education to transportation, we're renegotiating plenty....just where are you seeing the waste?

Two myths one hears about public education: it runs on a farm calendar and on a factory model. Both are usually said by those with little experience of either farms or factories. Schools don't run on a farm calendar (if they did, kids would have planting [spring] and harvest [fall] off), and they don't run on a factory model--or at least they didn't until we decided that all children had to fit the same exact mold of "proficient"or else be sent back for a factory revamp.

And if we really want to stay away from a factory model, then I'd suggest that parking kids in front of a whole lot of computers, as if that's going to save our educational system, would not be the best answer.

Seniority and education level pay is written into teachers' contracts. You can't just toss them. Duncan et. al are also picking and choosing their research in saying that teachers' amount of education doesn't change the job they do. I'd further note that in Massachusetts, teachers must get a master's degree to achieve full certification, by state law.

If you don't think class size matters, then I invite you to teach a kindergarten that has 30 kids, or to correct the essays of 200 high school sophomores, or to fill out the paperwork of a special ed teacher who's carrying a large student load. This is a rubber-meets-the-road issue. If you want quality teaching (and thus learning) in that kindergarten, and quality correcting, redirecting, commenting, on those essays, and quality evaluation and support for those kids with special needs, then you very quickly are going to find that class size DOES matter.

All which comes back to: these are people who have not taught. These are people who have not budgeted for a school system (yes, I know Duncan ran Chicago Public Schools; I'm betting his former financial office is darkly laughing at his comments, too). These are people, in short, who don't know what they are talking about.

And the rest of us still have budget gaps to contend with. Perhaps they'd like to let us get on with that?