12-Hour School Days

by Tammy Drennan

[Many thanks to Frances for letting me know about the article this piece refers to.]

Let’s say you have your children in a daycare situation and you discover that the provider is failing to do what they said they would, including keeping your children mentally stimulated and physically safe. Children are exposed to bullying, have easy access to toxic substances and are left largely to fend for themselves. They are bored, victimized, afraid, neglected and deteriorating or stagnating by every measure.

What would you do? Would you:

A) Remove your children from the daycare
B) Contact authorities to have the facility’s license revoked
C) Increase the amount of time your children spend at daycare

Almost everyone at every level of government, across the political spectrum, from every walk of life, agrees that American public schools are doing a poor job of educating children, as well as a poor job of keeping them emotionally and psychologically healthy and physically safe.

The federal government, via its education spokesperson, Arne Duncan, says it thinks the solution is: C) Increase the amount of time children spend at school, with possibilities reaching 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week.

Public schools, Mr. Duncan thinks, are the solution to — everything, apparently: childcare needs, poor test scores, social ills, you name it. The more time children spend there, the better.

It’s not that Mr. Duncan thinks schools are okay as they are. He doesn’t. But he has solutions for that, too — and I quote, “Nothing moves people as quickly as the opportunity for more funding, especially at a time like today.”

More time, more money, more testing — these are the answers.

Let’s wrap this up just so we’re clear on things: Take a system of education that is failing children in every imaginable area, expand its role in children’s lives, use methods of forcing improvement that have never worked before, and — voila! Um, I said Voila!

Valedictorian Tells Truth

by Tammy Drennan

[Many thanks to Frances for sending a link to this story.]

Graduate Erica Goldson, valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens High School’s (NY) class of 2010, shares on her blog her deep disappointment with her education and explores what it means to become educated.

A look at the school’s web site will let you know immediately that its personnel think it’s doing quite well. The photographs paint a picture of a happy, nurturing and exciting place where children are living up to their potential, Erica’s contrary opinion aside.

This is what happens when school becomes a bureaucracy of the state — committees are formed, special interests are lent an ear, agendas are proposed and plans fashioned to execute those agendas. Everyone is so excited to see that others will now be required to concede that their ideas are wonderful enough to elicit the backing of the state.

And what about the people — children — upon whom these agendas are enacted? Tsk, tsk. What a question. The agendas and plans and programs speak for themselves. Aren’t they beautiful? Aren’t they so organized? Aren’t they so measurable? Won’t we get the niftiest stats out of it all? Isn’t this a good cause? If the children rebel or balk at them, well, clearly the problem is the children. It’s obviously not us.

And if children are a problem, we clearly need more committees and agendas and plans, all informed by “experts” and special interests who know exactly why children are bucking our beautiful plans for them. So we form our committees and we get medicated children and therapized children and specially educated children and labeled children and children pressured by frightened and threatened parents.

It’s all so much fun. And to prove the children are having fun, we catch them in moments of laughter, at least the ones who are laughing, and we take pictures of them and put them on our web sites and in our PR materials. Aren’t our children happy?

And then a valedictorian comes along and suggests she was ill-educated and bored in school and that over a decade of her life has been wasted by the well-meaning people who run her school. And, well, what do we say?

That’s the great part. There’s no need to say anything. Public education is too big and powerful and useful to be brought down by a few cranky kids who get a glimpse of what their education might have been.

But it’s important for the kids to keep speaking. It will inspire other kids to take a look at their own situations, and it might even inspire a few teachers to take a closer look at themselves. Maybe it will help some of the children under “remediation” realize they are not the problem.

Neither the kids nor the teachers will be able to make much of a dent in the system, but maybe, just maybe, they’ll consider freedom.

The more who do, the more opportunity will be created for others. That’s how something worthwhile grows — people act freely and inspire others by their example. Then more people act freely. In freely acting and exploring and seeking, people find meaning for their lives and create possibility.

This is what America is about — the liberty to create a fulfilling life, to live for a purpose other than the growth of government and the gratification of do-gooders and do-badders who have learned they can employ the state (in every sense of that word) to effect their various agendas.

Hats off to Erica and to every other young person who has the courage to question the system. May many more follow in your footsteps.

NEA’s Diversity Events

by Tammy Drennan

On its web site, the National Education Association has a nifty list of what it calls “Diversity Events” for the entire year.

All manner of religious holidays show up on the list, as well as things like Independence Day and Ghandi’s birthday. Then there are things you might expect, like International Literacy Day; some cutesy celebrations that may or may not do any good, like No Name Calling Week; and a few truly odd things, like “Completion of Transcontinental Railroad in 1869″ (though what these have to do with diversity is a mystery).

But maybe the oddest item of all on the list is the one celebrated on October 1st — “Communist China Established.”

Here’s the little paragraph that accompanies it:

In Tiananmen Square in 1949, Mao Zedong, chairman of the Communist Party of China, proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, saying that the “Chinese people have stood up!”

The Chinese people stood up another time in Tiananmen Square, and got plowed down, but that event is not on the list.

Overall, it’s a fairly benign list, but this one item says a lot.

In spite of any set-backs the NEA has experienced in its battle against charter schools and vouchers and tenure-attacks, it is still largely the voice of public education today — the place to see where public schools are headed. It’s a big, well-funded and powerful voice at every political level, and you can be sure that a lot of savvy people working for the organization are plotting effective ways to counter the attacks on its agendas.

In the meantime, schools get worse, society coarsens, children suffer, and reformers keep thinking they have some special power — people power — that will eventually bring the NEA to its senses or its knees.

It ain’t gonna happen. Maybe that’s why the NEA celebrates Mao’s triumph.

Of course, we don’t live in communist China, so we have a choice.

We can choose to take all the energy and enthusiasm and good ideas and money we’re now throwing at public schools and create a better way. A free way. A hopeful way that will truly serve the needs of all children.

It’s something the public schools have been claiming expertise at, while demonstrating the opposite, for 160 years. Isn’t it time to face the fact that they can’t or won’t do it? Isn’t it time to take things into our own hands?

No matter how much the NEA identifies with Chairman Mao, they can’t plow us down.

Pity Our Children

by Tammy Drennan

Okay, I’m mad again. I try when I write to be passionate yet calm, but every once in a while I can’t help it – I just get really angry.

It’s not as if this stuff is new, but there’s no end to it. 

The state of Montana has decided it’s their civic duty to teach kindergarten children to recognize and learn the proper words for their anatomical private parts.

Maybe we should do away with that euphemism — private parts — if children attend public school, because that’s one place where nothing is private, including your body parts.

I am so bone-weary tired of the way schools, politicians, and an endless array of activists keep jerking children around and pretending they give a hoot about them. I am bone-weary tired of parents who let them do it. I am bone-weary tired of all the people who should know better trying to reform, instead of replace, the sorry houses of exploitation and moral and intellectual dilapidation we call public schools.

How many news stories do we need before we agree something awful is happening in public schools? How many children have to be traumatized, neglected, abused, exploited, miseducated, uneducated, molested, and even killed before we do something serious?

Not only are children treated like lab rats and inmates, they become animals who turn on one another. If you think I’m exaggerating, I suggest you spend some time in a typical middle school. Even teachers speak this strongly about it.

How much longer will this hoax go on? How much longer will we judge schools based on their own PR and the handful of popular kids and their parents who think they’re just peachy keen because they serve their particular interests and desires?

Our prisons are full, our therapists’ offices are full, our legal and illegal drug dealers are doing a booming business. The psychiatric/social service industry specializing in children is growing by leaps and bounds. Traumatized children are analyzed, labeled, drugged and stigmatized almost beyond belief.

We see all this, yet we continue to believe that school is a nice place for most children? Please! Do we value our own pleasures and comforts so much that we’ll sacrifice our own children for them? Do we value our own money so much that we’ll sacrifice children to save it and make it? 

What a pathetic society we’ve become. What a sorry bunch of adults make up this country. Pity the children. Pity the poor children we inflict all this upon.

God save us from ourselves and our children from us.

What if You Just Can’t?

by Tammy Drennan

What if you just can’t take your children out of public school, even though you really want to? Maybe you can’t afford or manage an alternative. Or maybe you have a custody situation that prevents you from taking that step.

What can you do to still make sure that your children get the kind of education – intellectually, practically, emotionally, socially and spiritually or ethically – that you want for them?

Here are some ideas to help.

1. Take a look at the areas already mentioned:

Intellectual/academic
Practical/living skills
Emotional/psychological
Social/relationships
Spiritual/ethical

On a scale of 1-10, rate how satisfied you are with how your child is developing in each of these areas.

Now you’ll know what to focus on.

2. Take the areas you’re most concerned about and write down specifically what it is that is worrying you. Maybe you feel your child isn’t really mastering math or is missing out on the most important lessons of history. Or maybe your child’s friends concern you or you feel your child is not fully committed to honest relationships. It could be you realize your child can do the academics but lacks the common sense to function in daily living. Take time with this and analyze the situation as honestly and in as much detail as possible.

3. Now, take your areas of concern and start a list of every possible way you might work toward improvement. For the time being, don’t worry about how outrageous or impossible your ideas are – write them all down.

Let’s say you’re concerned about your child’s ability to make wise decisions about relationships. Your ideas might include:

- Have Johnny talk to Uncle Mack about how he and Aunt Jane planned their marriage and life together.

- Find a course on social decision-making (on-line, book, or at a local church).

- Plan activities at our home for Johnny and friends and invite guest speakers (Uncle Mack, pastor…) for part of the time.

- Seek out and foster relationships with families whose values I share. Have them over for a meal or social time.

You see where this is going. Not every idea will pan out for you, but the more you brainstorm the more likely you’ll be to come up with ideas that will work. That’s how our brains work – the more we exercise them the better they think.

If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas on your own, get together with a trusted relative or friend – someone who shares your values and wants the best for your child. Work on the list together.

4. Once you have your list of ideas, choose one thing you think you can manage to start with. You’ll need to experience some success in order to gain confidence, so begin with something that seems truly doable.

5. In this step, you’ll have to exercise your insight into your child’s level of maturity. You may or may not want to do this at the start. Just keep in mind that you should not underestimate your child; he or she may welcome this. Here it is: Sit down with your child and explain to him or her that if you had your way you would have him in private school (or whatever you would choose), but you simply can’t manage it right now because _________________. Tell him that you nevertheless want him to benefit in some ways as if he were in private school. Explain that he’ll be seeing some changes in the way you’re managing his preparation for life and that you would welcome him as a partner in this new venture.

You’ll have to decide how far to go with this conversation. Let me issue one warning here: Don’t make it sound as if you’re setting up a plan to fix what’s wrong with him/her. This is a positive thing, a pro-active step. Be excited about it and view your child as a true partner, even if he doesn’t immediately warm to the situation.

6. As you implement and fine-tune your plans (and all plans need modification and fine-tuning as they go along), keep your eye on the prize – a well-educated, well-adjusted, competent, happy child growing into an adult of the same characteristics.

Always view yourself as your child’s protector, ally and mentor and never as his therapist or boss. You want your child to become a better person because of his association with you. Examine your own actions and attitudes as you walk this journey; view them from your child’s vantage point.

At first this may all seem hard or overwhelming, but I promise you – it gets easier the longer and more consistently you do it. Be practical about it. Don’t obsess over it – just decide what you need to do, make adjustments (or even scrap some ideas) as the need arises and keep moving forward.

Let me share one final thought. My parents reared 11 children. They were of a generation when parents did not discuss with their children their plans for rearing them. They just made decisions and acted on them.

Many years after I had children of my own, I was surprised when my mother told me about conversations she and my father had had about their decision to move to the country to afford their children a better environment for growing up and about their decision to never send their children to public school again and about other child-rearing decisions they made. I was heartened to hear this, even though it was after-the-fact. Even as an adult it made me feel more important to my parents. I had honestly thought my parents pretty much winged it with us and acted on impulse and expediency more than on deliberation.

It’s important for our children to know we’re thinking hard about what we’re doing with them and our decisions regarding their lives. It’s important, too, for them to see evidence that we take our role as parents seriously.

This is, of course, the simple version of how to take action when you can’t completely remove your children from public school. Your brainstorming and hard work will fill in the many blanks.

My wish for you and your children is happiness and success now and always.

The Beautiful Tree: Worth the Money

A beautiful book

If I were going to recommend just one book that paints a picture of the potential of empowered parents and private education, this would be the one. This a story of truth and hope, both of which we are in great need of, both abroad and here at home. Spend money on this book – it’s worth it. – Tammy

The Beautiful Tree: A personal journey into how the world’s poorest people are educating themselves by James Tooley

About the book: The subtitle says most of it. Traveling and working in India James Tooley stumbled upon a discovery – poor parents were rejecting state schools and paying to send their children to small private schools that sprung up to meet the need. Mr. Tooley took his discovery further by establishing a formal and disciplined research project and learned that the practice was widespread and not limited to India. He found the same thing going on in parts of Africa and China. Besides being a fascinating read and story of great hope, the book is quite well-written.

Links: Excellent interview with James Tooley (audio), Amazon Reviews

Excerpts:Something quite remarkable is happening in developing countries today that turns the accepted wisdom on its head.

As we traveled through the middle-class suburbs, I was struck by the ubiquity of private schools. Their signboards were on every street corner, some on fine specially constructed school buildings, but others grandly posted above shops and offices.

…the stunning thing about the drive was that private schools had not thinned out as we went from one of the poshest parts of town to the poorest. Everywhere among the little stores and workshops were little private schools!

There seemed to be a private school on almost every street corner, just as in the richer parts of the city.

But did they really deliver a quality education? I needed to find out.

[Tooley went on to test 24,000 children from these private schools and discovered that they actually outperformed the students from the state schools.]

…this was surely a profound discovery that would interest the development experts. I was in for a rude awakening.

[From a chart in the book]:

Hyderabad, India: 76% of children attending private schools
Ga, Ghana: 65.4% of children attending private schools
Lagos State, Nigeria: 75% of children attending private schools
Mahbubnagar, India: 52.1% of children attending private schools
Delhi, India: 39.7% of children attending private schools

The development experts I read appeared unanimous about the problems of public education for the poor. The World Bank called it “government failure,” with “services so defective that their opportunity costs outweigh their benefits for most poor people….”

Why did they believe they would get it right this time? It was not as if they’d been starved of resources in the past. It was not as if they hadn’t already published ream upon ream of papers on improving the system, on abolishing corruption, on ways of really delivering resources to the poor, concluding that the poor really must be served this time. Somehow, this time, it would be put right….

[The Hope]

The power and spirit of free enterprise are shining through again in the field of education. Will it eventually replace public schooling? I think the evidence shows that to be very likely. But will the state come around again, threatening to crowd it out, just as the moon will return to eclipse the sun? Perhaps it will. But the market in education is powerful. It builds on something that no central planner can possibly embrace, the strength of millions of decisions by individual families, the millions of bits of information grasped by the Searchers who relentlessly create and innovate, modify and develop what the people want. The power of educational self-help is strong…

EC: Now what about America?