The controversial documentary film Waiting for ‘Superman’ has shined a national spotlight on the need for school reform, while sparking intense debate over how best to achieve this goal.
The film portrays teachers’ unions as the primary obstacle to reform, and it espouses fixes—such as using test scores to measure teacher quality, and merit pay to encourage better teaching—that are contentious issues. Critics of the film say it provides a shallow view of the problems plaguing public education while ignoring other challenges altogether.
Paul Heckman, associate dean of the School of Education at the University of California, Davis, said teachers have come to represent both the unit of change and the unit of blame in education.
“Children are educated and learn over a period of time, but we have this notion that children are to make a year’s growth for every year they’re in school,” Heckman said. “This is … a problem, because children do not develop in nine-month chunks except during gestation.”
It’s much easier to put the blame on teachers, Heckman said, than it is to suggest that a school’s entire structure plays a role in student success. That’s not to say unions are blameless, he said—but reformers should spend more time re-evaluating education as a whole, and how schools can better support and encourage high-quality teaching.
“Teachers work alone, and they have infrequent opportunities during the workday to come together, talk about what they’re doing, and find out that other people are struggling or succeeding,” Heckman said. “They don’t [have a chance to] share what they’re doing, or challenge what they’re doing.”
Heckman sees stagnant results by U.S. students on international exams as a systemic failure, suggesting that U.S. schools aren’t doing a good enough job of keeping up with the times.
In most schools, he explained, teachers do 80 percent of the talking; adults ask the questions, instead of students asking and inquiring.
“The 21st century is calling for creativity and problem-solving. … Those are not the skills that are being urged on children, nor do we urge their engagement. I’m never surprised when we say that a lot of these kids aren’t doing well,” Heckman said.
It’s difficult enough that school-reform advocates have a hard time agreeing on what needs to be done to improve U.S. education. But the results of the midterm elections in November cloud the prospects for education reform even further. Observers say the big Republican gains in Congress will serve as a roadblock to Democrat-led reform efforts, including a likely decrease in big-ticket spending on programs such as Race to the Top as the GOP seeks greater fiscal restraint.
The GOP takeover of the House means that Rep. John Kline of Minnesota will become the chair of the Education and Labor Committee, giving the Minnesota Republican huge clout in shaping education spending.
Kline is a deficit hawk and retired Marine pilot who said it’s time to pull Washington out of the nation’s classrooms and stop using billions in federal dollars to bail out state education budgets.
“Washington does not have the money, and the states have got to face their own issues,” said Kline.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he was optimistic the Republican election victories wouldn’t derail the administration’s plans, but conceded: “There’s no guarantee our agenda will continue to move.”
Both parties have agreed on the need to revamp No Child Left Behind. But accomplishing even such a broadly held goal would require overcoming considerable divides between Democrats and Republicans on the role of the federal government in education, along with a different set of splits among Democrats over reforms like performance pay for teachers and charter schools.
In an interview with the AP, Kline voiced opposition to a range of Obama education policies—from the Common Core academic benchmarks to the $4.35 billion Race to the Top—primarily because he opposes federal interference with state and local decisions on education. And while Kline approves of charter schools and performance pay for teachers, he doesn’t want the federal government to be making decisions in those areas.
“We’re going to make changes. How we do it, how big they are, how big the bill is, all those things are to be worked out,” Kline said.
Related links:
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Teachers share their views on how to improve education
Critics: Obama’s ed policies no better than Bush’s
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Race to the Top program spurs school-reform debate
Opinion: Stop trashing teachers!
Despite image, union leader backs school change
Opinion: This ‘Superman‘ doesn’t fly
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Video: The Great Education Conversation
With divided Congress, school reform faces a tough road ahead
States that lost school money face reform dilemmas
U.S. public wants an easier way to fire bad teachers
Report: Only one percent of ‘bad’ schools turn around
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