I am a freak about vocabulary. I will sit motionless at the keyboard waiting for my foggy mind to clear so that the exact word I want to use will occur to me. Sometimes I cheat and use a – a – oh yeah I remember – a thesaurus.

I am also a semi-retired teacher so here is a test: Which of these two words – ensure, insure, would you put in each blank of this sentence?

Before you ________ that for a great deal of money you should first _______ that it is valuable.

Knowing which word is correct greatly effects the meaning of the sentence.

Or is it ‘affects’?

I think we are in a similar situation in education right now. Much effort is being put into insuring that our children are being well educated. But to adequately insure something implies that it is lost or destroyed and it must be replaced, possibly at great expense. And in replacing something there is no guarantee that we will get one as good as the one we had.

There is a prevalent opinion that our whole public education system must be replaced because children keep failing the tests we give them. In an article in AlterNet, Paul Thomas says it is not that simple, in fact it may be much more insidious. 1) He believes that the “No-Excuses” focus merely serves to short change those less privileged that others and gives data driven researchers a ready response that is mis-informed and scapegoat that is undeserving the label.

While I am not necessarily a proponent of a conspiracy theory of educational reform, I do believe that we are incorrectly confusing ‘insure’ and ‘ensure’.

American public education was originally an idea from the New England colonies. It was adapted from this to include the entire nation over a slow process of aggregation. The basic principle was that in a republic, universal education is a right and a necessity that must be maintained in order to have an informed participant population.

Since the sixties we have instituted standardized testing to insure that our education system is working properly. It is like the expiration date on a milk carton. Seeing it has passed and we still drink the milk to see if it has gone bad rather than buying a new carton. The problem is if it is bad you get a nasty mouthful of sour milk. In the case of education it is a much more egregious mistake. To test and find out that a student is not prepared is to mean that our work must be done all over again through remediation. It would be much better to ensure their education.

So how do we do that?

Simply, first we establish rigorous standards that are consistent across the nation. You know kind of like a Common Core. Then we write those standards so they do not simply check for memorization and drill but actually encourage thoughtful response. You know kind of like a Common Core. Next we maintain INDIVIDUAL records on each student, recording what standards they have completed and which ones they are still working on. Not mass produced, group tests that shame and denigrate one class over another but simply portfolios of work that demonstrate proficiency. Periodically we might even go back and check previously learned skills.

Finally, and this might be the hardest one to enact, we judge growth not by years of age but objectives completed. We do not recognize failure, we celebrate success. After all these are our children we are talking about.

Oh, and one more thing, we fully fund this process, not just in materials, but for teachers and support personnel. We recognize excellence in the profession by the effort of the professional to expedite this system, by their study of their craft and by their knowledge of the relevant material. Simply, we stop short-changing our future.

1) http://www.alternet.org/education/no-excuses-and-culture-shame-miseducation-our-nations-children

“I’m one, I got my fork, now bring on the cake!”

It’s hard to believe my grand-daughter is one year old.  It seems like only yesterday I held her in the hospital and gave her her first kiss on her furrowed brow.

We attended the obligatory birthday party at a place I wouldn’t normally be caught dead in. You know, one of those ‘pizza parlors’ devoted to excesses of noise, lights, games, screams and grandparents who wish they were somewhere else. (The grandparents might have been the ones screaming, I couldn’t tell.) So much time, energy and money expended in the name of celebrating our children; the mind boggles.

And yet almost simultaneously across the nation, our children are being short-changed in one of their most critical areas of growth; we have severely cut back our funding for education.

Right now children are returning to school and finding things changed. There are fewer teachers, less educational materials and more children per class. Can we reverse this? Joy Resmovitz writing in the Huffington Post, says that there is hope that we may see the situation improve because President Obama is also sounding the alarm.  1) The White House has released a report entitled: “Investing in Our Future: Returning Teachers to the Classroom.” in it this administration finally seems to have realized the potential damage that can occur if the trend of laying off teachers and underfunding education continues. 2)

One of the most common problems that is cited by teachers is that they are expected to do more with less. They are also being expected to teach more with less. Class size continues to grow. There have been many in administrative and legislative positions who have pooh-poohed the notion of smaller class size being important.  Our current Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan has publicly supported the concept that a teacher will be just as effective with 20 students as they will with 25 or more.

When asked to explain his comments further, Duncan told The Huffington Post that he’d rather have better teachers in larger classes. “My point there was that I think the quality of the teacher is so hugely important,” he said. “I’ve said things like, give me the parent, give me an option of 28 children in a class with a phenomenal teacher or 22 children in a class with a mediocre teacher. If I was given that choice, I would choose a larger class size.” 3)

Randi Weingarten, head of AFT, responded that Duncan’s comments were disingenuous because wouldn’t he rather have both a phenomenal teacher AND a smaller class size? It only makes sense to say that if we improve one factor impacting our education system, improving two would be better and therefore working to improve all elements of public instruction must then be even more desirable.

Duncan recognizes the risk we take in ignoring the needs of education. He knows that the government impact on educational funding is limited. Most of the money is in the hands of the individual states legislatures. His comments on class size were given in reference to where we must allocate our rapidly diminishing resources that are still devoted to education. 4)

Since that time Duncan has also backed off his other position somewhat, admitting that reducing class size is important too but it needs to be coupled with improvements in teacher skills and better retention of effective teachers. 5, 6, 7)

Here is my shopping list Mr. Duncan: better training for teachers, improved compensation for well trained instructors, ensuring that  every child has access to those well trained teachers and adequate materials in their classroom, also ensuring every child has a chance to learn effectively by supporting early education programs, school breakfast and lunch programs, health care for all and since it takes a minimum of two incomes to adequately raise a family these days; before and after school programs to allow parents to go work to support their families without concern for what their children are doing.

If we wanted to, we could do this. If we truly believed what we say about our children and their importance to us, we would do it. But perhaps even more importantly, if we as adults, want our children to be the inheritors of a better life and a stronger America, shouldn’t we do this?

1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/18/obama-back-to-school-education-cuts_n_1799289.html

2) http://www.scribd.com/doc/103166235?secret_password=3tx63weozho4nyaeqbt

3) http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/new-normal-doing-more-less-secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-american-enterprise-institut

4) http://www.frederickhess.org/2011/03/breakfast-at-arnes

5) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/14/larger-class-size-a-thousand-cuts_n_1659591.html

6) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/05/class-size-fight-overcrowding_n_997052.html

7) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/duncan-boosts-merit-pay-a_n_913608.html