OP-ED | What It Means To Be ‘Taken Over’: Notes On The Windham School District
by Apartheid First | Apr 22, 2012 2:47pm
(20) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Opinion
Courtesy of the Butler Institute of American Art
The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio. Winslow Homer, Snap the Whip, 1872, oil on canvas, 22 x 36 in. Museum Purchase 1918.
I begin with the wonderful painting by Winslow Homer because it represents an ideal image of American education: before the iconic little red schoolhouse, a group of boys is engaged in a boisterous game called “snap the whip.” The energy they expend during recess — Ralph Waldo Emerson called them “masters of the playground and of the street” — is a response to their morning’s work inside the schoolhouse, at their books. Discipline and freedom are both necessary to their development, and the fact that they are outdoors on a gorgeous day adds to the beauty of the scene.
Modern educational thought has moved far away from the principles of free public education expressed in Homer’s painting, or in the thought of Emerson. Emerson praised New England in particular as the first place “in the world [with] the freest expenditure for education.” Emerson saw this as direct corollary to the independence of the United States, where even the poor were to be educated, not only in the trades or in the rudiments of letters and numbers, but “in the languages, in sciences, in the useful and in elegant arts. The child shall be taken up by the State, and taught, at the public cost . . . the ripest results of art and science.”
Current thinking prefers to backpedal on this revolutionary practice, and institute an empty and dull curriculum of material that can be measured and quantified by standardized testing. Science, even for the youngest children, is distanced from nature, the closer it can approach computers. “STEM” programs — Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math — are not reserved for upper-level students who have mastered reading, music, art, botany, etc. Instead, technology will be taught from kindergarten, with a large supply of “non-fiction” books. Why fiction has become antithetical to children’s education is a mystery to me. Those who design such curricula have no idea how a child develops — although they are well aware of how to create subjects that can be tested and “read” by machine.
As bad as the standardized test regime had become with No Child Left Behind, it has gotten so much worse since Steven Adamowski took over the Windham School district. CMT prep has become a subject, often taught more than once per day. In some classrooms, there is no longer social studies or any other subject not currently tested on the CMTs. Even in kindergarten through second grade, there are many tests given every few weeks. Drill, drill, drill. Unlike the carefree children who revel in their freedom in Winslow Homer’s “Snap the Whip,” a first-grader told his teacher in the district: “We’re good testers.” He was referring to the endless assessments conducted on behalf of the state and federal government.
The first change Adamowski wrought in Windham was to cut early childhood education. Many parents whose children had been accepted into the free preschool program found out that, instead, they would have to make other plans. Adamowski made this to cut an already bare-bones education budget. Budget votes, in which the school funds can be singled out while other parts pass, are very acrimonious in Windham, with out-of-town landlords placing “Vote NO” signs on the properties they own — but don’t live in. The effect of merely cutting further is to tell the town that inadequate funding isn’t the issue, and it makes privatization initiatives, somewhere down the line, more attractive. Adamowski seems to prefer appeasing the “No” voters to offering preschool to poor children.
I assume that a takeover by the Commissioner’s Network would be similar: cutting programs to the most vulnerable constituencies; reducing bus service, which will make it hard for some children to get to school; increasing test-prep and drilling; utilizing under-certified staff, such as Teach for America, rather than hiring traditional teachers who would stay in the district. Adamowski also has spent a lot of time redrawing bus routes; favoring some schools with lower student numbers while making others more crowded; and re-organizing the high school so that areas like Band and Art classes will no longer fit into students’ schedules.
The efforts of Adamowski and of the so-called school reformers have very little to do with education. Whereas in neighboring towns students begin foreign language study in fifth or sixth grade, in Windham students are lucky to have one quarter-term of a language in eighth grade. While it is nearly impossible for parents to speak to Adamowski, he has proven accessible to landlords and business people. The Board of Education, which is powerless, spends their time thinking of how to fundraise for Teach for America, accepting TFA as a Band-Aid solution and a wedge for privatization.
Emerson wrote: “A collector recently bought in London an autograph of Shakespeare; but for nothing a school-boy can read Hamlet and detect secrets of highest concernment yet unpublished therein.” Emerson believed in equality for all Americans, and he saw the golden potential of every child. School is not a business, but one of the requirements of a free and just society. But I fear that when schools get taken over, school children will no longer read Shakespeare. They don’t even read Emerson. In a technocratic world, it’s easy to adopt technocratic solutions to all problems. But the great educators, from Plato to Locke to Rousseau to John Dewey and Emerson, have always recognized that education is an irreducible humanistic enterprise involving the whole human person. Certainly, school reformers should have a look at one of the greatest thinkers of the United States.
Mary Gallucci is a parent with three children in the Windham School District.
Tags: education, Windham, teachers, reform, adamowski, dh
(20) Comments
posted by: ConcernedVoter | April 16, 2012 7:12pm
Well said! This is what the reformers want: a docile, uneducated population that is easy to exploit. Say no to this brand of corporate reform!
posted by: CONconn | April 22, 2012 6:14pm
Awesome article! Thank you very much for this first hand report of the Adamowski disaster. This man was scheduled to hit the lottery with the original version of the bill… thousands and thousands of dollars in the form of a pension he didn’t earn.
posted by: Linda12 | April 22, 2012 6:26pm
Adamowski’s appointment to special master is based upon fraudulent test score gains. When you boast increases, you probably should mention that you also increased the number of students who would NOT be taking the traditional CMT tests. Read for yourself
Why shouldn’t a CT student with an education degree and probably student loans get a job over a TFA (teach for awhile) candidate? TFA’s are more expensive because you have to pay them a first year salary and the $2,000-$2,500 fee.
posted by: schoolmom | April 22, 2012 6:26pm
What an eloquent statement on what education should be and what it isn’t for our most vulnerable children. Thank you, Mary!!!
posted by: jonpelto | April 22, 2012 6:34pm
outstanding piece - no one should be allowed into the Capitol building until they read this.
posted by: Linda12 | April 22, 2012 6:40pm
This is long, but you must read this entire article. I will post two important excerpts:
http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3781
Gates was in part determining who qualified for Race to the top funding:
Enter the Gates Foundation. It reviewed the prospects for reform in every state, picked fifteen favorites, and, in July 2009, offered each up to $250,000 to hire consultants to write the application. Gates even prepared a list of recommended consulting firms. Understandably, the other states cried foul; so did the National Conference of State Legislatures: Gates was giving some states an unfair advantage; it was, in effect, picking winners and losers for a government program. After some weeks of reflection, Gates offered the application money to any state that met the foundation’s eight criteria. Here, for example, is number five: “Does the state grant teacher tenure in fewer than three years? (Answer must be “no” or the state should be able to demonstrate a plan to set a higher bar for tenure).”
Who says the foundations (and Gates, in particular) don’t set government policy?
Closing:
Can anything stop the foundation enablers? After five or ten more years, the mess they’re making in public schooling might be so undeniable that they’ll say, “Oops, that didn’t work” and step aside. But the damage might be irreparable: thousands of closed schools, worse conditions in those left open, an extreme degree of “teaching to the test,” demoralized teachers, rampant corruption by private management companies, thousands of failed charter schools, and more low-income kids without a good education. Who could possibly clean up the mess?
All children should have access to a good public school. And public schools should be run by officials who answer to the voters. Gates, Broad, and Walton answer to no one. Tax payers still fund more than 99 percent of the cost of K–12 education. Private foundations should not be setting public policy for them. Private money should not be producing what amounts to false advertising for a faulty product. The imperious overreaching of the Big Three undermines democracy just as surely as it damages public education.
posted by: Linda12 | April 22, 2012 7:47pm
To Jon P and all others:
They may be too busy reading the ConnCan and GNEPSA (aka Rhee/students first) ads in the Courant today stating teachers support SB24, the original version. Lots of out of state money coming to CT…a reason to be suspicious for sure.
Mary, Thank you!
Please read another well written piece in the New York Times today titled, Teach the books, Touch the Heart:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/taking-emotions-out-of-our-schools.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
posted by: GoatBoyPHD | April 22, 2012 9:29pm
Linda your simplifications continue to astound me.
The reason the Gates foundation works better with some states than others is quite simple: some states want the money and are amenable to non-traditional and non-union run schools.
I think its irresponsible to not pursue grants that are readily available and then sticking it to the taxpayer over and over so that CT schools remain “union-only”.
Then there’s the whole “Race to the Top” funding fiasco. Shouldn’t someone be held accountable for failed efforts to secure billions in federal funds and private grants just to appease the unions?
CT as a state made it too difficult to do business with. No one wants to do business here. Few companies relocate here. It’s not like the roaring 70s.
Charters, vouchers, private and parochial schools—they should all be part of the arsenal.
posted by: GMR | April 23, 2012 12:16am
I don’t live in Windham, and until this article didn’t know anything about the school budget issues there. I do agree that many school districts seem to test way too much. It’s not that surprising that they do this (if you make the test scores the determination of their budget, they’ll do everything they can to get those test scores higher).
However, after a few minutes of Googling:
Windham, according to the CT Department of Education, spends $14,771 per student. See http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/PDF/dgm/report1/basiccon.pdf. Unfortunately, the CT DOE made that file a PDF so you can’t sort it, but $14,771 is higher than West Hartford ($12,801), Ridgefield ($14,111), and Shelton. There are many districts higher than Windham, but eyeballing it, I’d say Windham would probably be about a third of the way down the list.
I don’t know if there are some quirks in the way these data are collected and calculated (for instance, having some districts with half day kindergarten and others with full day kindergarten, but the per pupil spending would be lower for those without FDK; special ed status may also contribute to distortions, as would if pre-school were part of the public schools or not as that would influence both the numerator and denominator of per pupil spend).
However, assuming there aren’t weird distortions in the figures, spending over $14K per student seems like a decent amount. While the amount may have been reduced recently, Windham is still spending much more than many districts around the state.
The mill rate in Windham is apparently 28.36. I don’t have any information if this is high or low; if anyone has any perspective on this, that might be useful…
posted by: state_employee | April 23, 2012 6:37am
Malloy does not care what education for our children will look like in Connecticut. He is preping for a national stage.
Parents beware. Be afraid, be very afraid.
posted by: RJEastHartford | April 23, 2012 7:29am
Clear strategies on laying the groundwork for monetizing education by taking it private, this great mom exposes so much here, most importantly what can be lost.
posted by: Linda12 | April 23, 2012 8:00am
Goat Boy - Your inability to learn new information continues to astound me.
Write to Joanne Barkan, the author of the article to express your concerns:
http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3781
By the way RTTT is also known as the Race to Nowhere.
posted by: schoolmom | April 23, 2012 10:37am
GMR, just looking at spending alone only tells part of the story. You must look at cost. According to analyses done throughout this nation, it can cost twice as much to educate a child living in poverty as a child with no additional needs. The concentration of poverty in a school can raise that cost as well. The same is true for English Language Learners. For students with disabilities, depending on the disability, it can cost up to four times as much as educating a child with no additional needs. So to compare spending in Windham, where 72% of children are eligible for free and reduced price lunch to West Hartford, where that number is 18% and Ridgefield, where that number is 2%, is not very enlightening. Similarly, looking at the ELL population, WIndham has almost 25%, with 35% of children coming from non-English speaking homes, West Hartford, 18% and 18.5%, and Ridgefield 0.4% and 0.6% (and Windham’s sped population is larger as well). Shelton also has children with fewer needs as well. According to these needs alone, Windham needs to spend more than these districts to provide their chidren with all the educational services they need.
posted by: lkulmann | April 23, 2012 10:48am
CT kids need a better education, period! This is about an achievement gap and it’s embarrassing. If kids can’t come out of grade school with the ability to read and write at an age appropriate level, why bother with all this fluffy stuff. They can read and study Shakespeare in college. At the rate we’re going, these kids aren’t properly prepared for entry level college courses. If parents have above average kids that want to study Shakespeare in kindergarten that can be provided. Wouldn’t it be interesting if parents with higher than average functioning children had to ‘advocate’ for a FAPE. Imagine…‘I need an Emergency PPT! How is my child going to reach his full educational potential if you don’t even have Shakespeare in the library!! Well Mrs So and So, its not in the budget…you will need to get a private educational consultant, at your expense to determine if Shakespeare is indeed the appropriate literature for your child…karma…ya think?
posted by: GoatBoyPHD | April 23, 2012 1:17pm
There’s a view that too much is spent on the ELL and poverty kids.
The money is better used in social services to minimuze risk factors. Increasing school expenditures had little measurable effect.
Then there’s the argument that jobs for the ELL cohort and poverty related dropouts are the real panacea. CT needs the types of diverse economy that some Southern States are gravitating toward. Quite simply, our expectations are too high for social engineering through schools and social services particularly when kids do not come from supportive learning environments.
There’s no magic bullet here except removing kids from at risk environments at as early an age as possible. Given the practical and legal problems that suggests the other remedy is earlier and earlier pre-school sessions to minimize contact with the at risk home environment.
There’s nothing pretty here in this discussion lacking a proven solution.
posted by: GMR | April 23, 2012 4:49pm
Well, what amount do you think would be appropriate to spend per student in Windham and other similar communities? Where would the money come from? Is it feasible to raise the property tax to pay for this? Or would you need to siphon off more from the state government budget?
I just don’t know if you are saying $16K would be enough, or if it has to be $25K, or what? But there isn’t an endless supply of money, and CT spends more than most states on a per student basis.
I understand why the landlords, who while not living in the town are still paying the taxes, are placing the No signs on their properties. They have to raise their rents to cover the taxes, and by raising the rents, they might lose out to a neighboring town or a neighboring state even.
posted by: TerryW | April 23, 2012 5:40pm
Mary,
Please read…in reference to TFA from a former TFA “teacher”
An essay by a former Teach for America recruit: Why I did TFA, and why you shouldn’t
Send to Adamowski?
posted by: mpalmer | April 24, 2012 1:28pm
It feels like we’ve been down this road before,
For EAI, Profit Will Be Possible But Tough
Perhaps the next step is to proclaim that investing the Social Security Trust Fund in school privatization will fix both Social Security and reform education.
“F” Is for Fizzle: The Faltering School Privatization Movement