How Chicago's teacher strike explains the education de-revolution

[antigop]

http://www.redeyechicago.com/news/markley/redeye-how-chicagos-teacher-strike-explains-the-education-derevolution-20120911,0,5720944.story

Yet more importantly Chicago’s situation speaks to the systemic failure of American education, the bipartisan de-revolution, which is totally obvious, empirically proven, and taboo to speak of.

From Bush’s No Child Left Behind to Obama’s Race to the Top, there has been consensus that we need to introduce innovation into education, that if schools are failing, it's the fault of the educators, and that we should introduce reforms such as merit pay to make sure teachers don’t suck. Charter schools, Chicago is told, are the answer.
....
Finland, it turns out, has one of the best education systems in the world according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and it doesn’t have to get those results by forcing students into the insane rote memorization-style learning of Asian countries that leads some to suicide. Of course education reformers then all head to Finland to see how those crazy Fins managed this, and after all the gnashing of teeth about “teacher accountability”, there’s one obvious conclusion that American policymakers can’t even acknowledge: there are no private schools in Finland

Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education's Center for International Mobility, makes this point all the time, and it’s remarkable and kind of hilarious to hear how we have taken everything the Finnish have learned and are doing the exact opposite. We are trying to pay teacher’s less and pit schools against each other in the hopes that competition will somehow lead overworked, underpaid public school teachers to perform miracles that erase America’s gaping economic inequality. And while proponents may certainly be able to point to limited pieces of data that seem to support increased testing or school vouchers, the inevitable outcome of any market system is that there are losers. In this case, the losers will be poor, troubled kids who need the most from their education, and who will end up costing taxpayers far more when they’re in prison.

Or as my friend James put it when he pointed me to Sahlberg’s work, “Basically, all he’s pointing out is the very obvious fact that Finland funds its education system like they want all their kids to be educated while Americans fund their education system like a bunch of self-interested bigots.”

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Most of us know all of this...but it's nice to see someone writing about it.

[tama]

1. Finland

There are some "semi-private" schools under public license, such as Montessori and Steiner schools (which are very popular with some highly educated progressive/alternative peoples). As things look still relatively good in the primary education, the neoliberal assault has done horrible damage to Finnish public universities and academic life (university student's rocketing rate of mental problems is most telling sign). Needless to say the privatization agenda and continuosly increasing corporate model bureaucratic control in universities have been done against unanimous and strong opposition by teaching personnel and student of universities.

But back to the topic, what works is growing responsibility is trust and freedom instead of distrust and control mania: Horrible google translation from Finnish, "enjoy":

U.S. stuns especially one feature in Finnish schools.

When the Americans will be visited by Finnish schools, they amaze the most is how much the Finns trust each other, says the International Mobility CIMO Centre Director Pasi Sahlberg.

-The teacher asks the pupils very gently and humanely, how many have done my homework. When only half of the points, the teacher points out that the assignments are your own responsibility. America, the student should be punished.

In Finland, authorities rely on the staff of the schools: principals and teachers have a great deal of power to influence teaching content and methods of education, and schools rotate inspectors.

-The American school system, as well as pupils and teachers are accountable.

Also, the lack of national tests wonder Americans.

-They ask how it is known in Finland, where the schools are bad.

I answer that, we rely on the fact that people are doing things well, and that if necessary, help is at hand. We do not need a control system in which to find errors and punish them.

Even more amazing is the fact that Finland has been successfully combined with equality in education and high quality.

Washington's decision-makers are seeking to learn from Finland

The American people are now so interested in schools in Finland, that when a local publishing house published a book on the subject, written by Sahlberg, it was sold out in a couple of weeks.

Sahlberg raining for invitations to share their wisdom, the next week he talks in Washington on the set of the highest education political authority.

The book has been read in homes across the country.

-I have had parents of the pupils and the local school boards members of the mail, which is mulling Finnish human approach to education.

http://www.iltasanomat.fi/kotimaa/art-1288432181518.html

[HiPointDem]

2. "the bipartisan de-revolution...taboo to speak of."

to me this is the most important point.

there are lots of good reforms that could be made, lots of experiments that could be tried.

but the 1% consensus is for the corporate bag 'o crap they're foisting on us now, & most citizens aren't aware that it's happening, let alone that it's supported by both parties at the highest levels.

IOW, all these wonderful ideas are irrelevant, because the PTB are behind prison schools, testing factories, privatization, and economic rents flowing from the taxpayers to corporations.