Posts from — November 2007

It takes a lot of courage to look at the actual state of our public school system – and more courage to do something about it. But it starts with being about to really understand what is going on. Here’s a great interactive map of Washington, DC schools (130 of them) and some of the conditions they are in.

This map shows teacher quality, crime, health, safety, building maintenance and other data.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/interactives/dcschools/scorecard.html

When it comes right down to it most, if not all, of what is happening in education is about people. People make decisions and choices and people determine what is or is not going to be apart of our school system.

As I’ve written before, the purpose of a system is what it does. What a system does betrays the thinking of the people involved in it. Much of that thinking is known and purposeful but some of it is not known.

I’ve also written before that we have a ‘school system’ NOT an ‘education system.’ The distinction is important. The free public school system is designed to ‘school’ the population (the masses). Even venerable private schools are falling to the same thinking that drives the rest of schooling.

Here’s a story in the NY Times about a private school that finds one of its well liked and valuable teachers being censored by the very institution that professes to ‘educate’ its students. The purpose of a system is what it does – NOT what it says it does. This school that professes to educate is CHOOSING to lose this valuable asset (and several other teachers).

When it comes right down to it this is about people. It’s about how people think, what they want, and the values they have about life, about people, about freedom, and about challenging the status quo.

Private School, Public Fuss
By ALLEN SALKIN • Published: November 18, 2007
IT was an “O captain! My captain!” moment.
‘GREAT IS THE TRUTH’ A respected New York school gets some unwanted attention.
Andrew Trees had been informed that his contract at the Horace Mann School, one of the nation’s most academically respected high schools, would not be renewed, and this May he was in his final days. A history teacher who had taught at the private school for six years, Mr. Trees had written a satirical novel, “Academy X,” about an elite school where students and parents resort to bribery and blackmail to ensure Ivy League college admission.