Private Schools and Educational Reform
This morning while browsing through my feeds I came across this article “Why Don’t Top Private Schools Adopt Corporate Driven Reforms?” (Thanks for sharing Skip) As someone who has worked in private and public schools it has always fascinated me why public schools do what they do. I am often bewildered by my experiences in public education. This may be because I began my career in private schools and have never fully transitioned my thinking into public education. Before you continue please read the article as what follows in an initial reaction.
I have taught in a wide variety of schools. For about half my teaching career in private schools located in Ghana, New York, Jordan, Korea and Saudi Arabia. My most recent work experience is in a public school. My children attend/attended public charter middle and high schools. I have worked with a range of students in my day. From students who wonder if they will have enough to eat and own just the clothes on the their backs (Ghana 1985 during the famine years, the school closed twice as there was not enough food to feed the students). To those who arrive in a chauffer driven car. One thing the majority of my students had in common was going to an English language school when English was not their native tongue. But I have found where ever I have taught kids are kids.
In public education we are constantly bombarded with the notion of data driven decision-making. Everything we do in public education must be based on data. But I have yet to see a good explanation of the data used to create these mandates, standards and evaluation systems imposed on public schools. In fact the data I have seen suggests that these efforts do not significantly raise test scores. There is data that supports the notion that a rise in test scores leads to a decrease in creativity and love of learning (here and here). As a parent I can tell you I would much rather have my children be instilled with a passion to know and the skills to find out, then success on a test. (If you know about the data and studies that were used to support the development of the common core, PARCC, and the new teacher evaluation system please share below, I feel like I am missing part of the puzzle.)
When I worked in private schools our goal was simply to provide the best learning experience for each student. It was a common theme for all those schools. We worked with individual students and crafted our lessons, activities and expectation around those we taught. We individualized everything. We sought to challenge our students and ourselves to know more, share more and to think deeply about things. We believed that experimentation, exploration and “playing around” were essential aspects of becoming an active learner. We did not have a “standard”, there were no minimum goals, there was no limit to what we could expect or accomplish. Our evaluation came from parents; they either continued to send their children to our schools or they did not. When I met with my administrators our discussion focused on what we could do to challenge our students and foster their passions. We discussed individuals how each was doing and how each could do better.
I believe the theme to provide the best learning experience for each student is the same for public schools but we seem to go about it in such a convoluted manner it tends to get lost and I get confused. We try to individualize instruction because all students are not the same but we standardize assessment with the expectation that students learn at the same rate. We teach with a detailed scope and pacing guide; any exploration, divergence or remediation must be pre-planned. In some school districts all classes are to be on the same lesson each day. We set limits. We expect a pattern. We look for the average growth for a group of students. Should this mean as a teacher I target the students who have the potential for the most growth so my average growth of scores improves? We end up aiming for average, the middle of the road. Our focus is diverted from our students in the hopes of bettering our students.
What I have always wondered is why aren’t public schools more like private schools. The same peer reviewed school accreditation associations such as NEASC and Middle States often accredit private schools and public schools alike. Private schools are accredited and their students go on to college without following and participating in state and federal mandates. So why do public schools follow all these mandates? Money, I know. Have towns thoughtfully reflected on these policies? Have they chosen their adoption because they are the right things to do for the children they serve? What would happen if a town just said no?
Update: A colleague shared this article with me that shares some data about the effectiveness of standards.
4 thoughts on “Private Schools and Educational Reform”
Hi Beth. My name is Daniel Coker and I’m a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I will be summarizing this and a future post of yours on my blog which can be located here.
I fully agree with your stance on ‘standardized’ learning and tests. By imposing tests as a measure of information retention, public education is doing students a disservice for two reasons. First of all, students are different, and learn at different paces – or don’t take tests well – and so tests are not the best measure of success. Secondly, by placing such an emphasis on testing, students begin to fear failure on those tests. The fear of making mistakes on tests easily translates to a fear of making mistakes in real life – and so the creative portion of the brain, the part that wants to take chances without fear of failure, is suppressed. The video that opened my eyes to this is Sir Ken Robinson on Creativity, and you and he see eye to eye. When I become an educator, I feel it will be my duty to work for change in how students are taught in the future.
Thank you for the wonderful read!
Daniel Coker
EDM310 at the University of South Alabama
Daniel,
Sir Ken Robinson has been an inspiration to me, as well as, my own children. They were born with curiosity and a creative spark that I slowly saw extinguished at school. I have repeated to them often the quote attributed to Mark Twain “I never let my schooling interfere with my education.” I remind them often that there is more to learning and knowing that what takes place in school. School is just a part of their learning experience and if they live a nice long life it will be a small part of their life’s experience, don’t let it put you off from the love of exploring and knowing. These encouragements may not have helped them with their homework record but it has helped them develop passions, talents and interests outside of school. They may not be the best students but they are accomplished learners.
The sad truth of the matter is that the process of accreditation doesn’t really matter to most schools; it’s like the semi-regular doctor check up where school districts jump through all the hoops to make sure that everything is still good, and even if they aren’t districts almost never loss accreditation. There’s always a process, or a period of probation while conditions are improved. It’s like a really horrible miniature version of the financial credit rating mess where almost no one ever gets downgraded, but when they do it’s from an “A triple plus” to an “A double plus”.
You won’t be able to get the majority of public schools to start acting like private schools until you can get them to stop focusing on standardized testing results. And that’s not going to happen anytime soon because most public schools don’t even begin to operate like private schools anymore. While you mention that “towns” may not have reflected on their policies, it most states educational decisions of that nature are no longer under local control. States now fund, and dictate most of the learning objectives, and with money tied to outcomes of tests, local communities are very powerless to change most of that.
Not really an answer to your questions, just a reflection on the sad state of many school districts 🙁
Sadly Ben, you are so right. Schools seek approval from those that fund, the state. Slowly towns lost control of what they teach and how they manage and run their schools. In my little neck of the woods most money for schools still comes from the local town budgets but that does not stop them for doing anything asked of them by the state. It seemed to be a gradual process. Schools now no longer think about why they do things they just react to what they are told to do. I guess that is the part that bothers me the most. We say we want our students to be critical thinkers and responsible citizens asking the key questions: Why? How do you know? Where is the data? What are the options? Is the another point of view? But we are not practicing what we teach we no longer think about those things we comply. I am not saying that some of the things we are asked to do are incorrect it is just the process of jumping through the hoops that troubles me.