King's Brown v Board Speech: Right Problem- Wrong Solutions

May 14th marked the 60th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The Brown case set the standard for school desegregation and made "separate but equal" a supposed practice of the past. While the Brown decision remains important today, it has also failed to be a solution for inequalities. In many inner city school systems and small upstate districts, separate but unequal is a reality. Decades of well-intended attempts to remedy this problem have resulted in very little progress.

To mark this momentous occasion, New York State Commissioner of Education, John B. King, Jr., spoke at the Rockefeller Institute of Government to decry the continuing failures of public education, the damaging actions of non-reformers and hail his holy grail solution to all things unequal . . . . the Common Core!  

As a prelude to his main points, Dr. King begins by asking a pointed question: Why are we silent?

The question isn't asked in an inquiring fashion. He isn't actually wondering why the silence exists. He's framing his question in the form of a criticism. A criticism levied at an imagined public who sits back and allows the unequal schooling to continue. It's levied at the parents, the administrators, the politicians and, of course, the public school teachers who sit idly by and watch as poor kids and children of color fall through the cracks.

The problem is, so long as I have been in public education (16 years), the plight of these children has been the central focus of nearly every conversation concerning a host of problems ranging from testing achievement to drop-out rates to homework completion and reading levels. No one in my public education experience has been silent. We've cried for funding equity, condemned unfunded mandates and pleaded for real solutions to these problems. We've read and discussed Ruby Payne's "Understanding Poverty", developed mentor programs, organized after school programs and increased school-based support services. But as No Child Left Behind became the law of the land and we moved toward a system of testing and accountability, we have only found that a narrowing of the curriculum coupled with high-stakes testing results in increased disinterest for these students.

So, to start with, the problem isn't silence. The problem is in the solutions that benefit market-forces more than they do the students. The problem is a society that obsesses over their fears of income redistribution and taxation of the wealthy. The problem is that we have communities that have had to cut their teaching staffs, increase their class sizes and put on hold long overdue building repairs and infrastructure upgrades. If we want equality of opportunity, we need to offer equality of resources.

During his speech, Dr. King made some valid points and provided a very strong and compelling assessment of the current state of public education New York State. In particular, he summed up the challenges many schools face when dealing children of color and those who come from impoverished households.  His claims about the impact of public schools mirror my own beliefs when addressing those from poor neighborhoods:

Schools have often been called the great equalizer – the place where the impact of our differences of economic class and background can be erased – and where our qualities of intellect, creativity, hard work, and persistence can triumph. 

He further states his view that schools have gained little since the Brown decision:

Believe it or not, 60 years after Brown, we also remain deeply segregated. According to one recent report, New York has the most segregated schools in the country – both racially and economically.

Not only do our 700 school district lines often track patterns of residential economic segregation, there are school districts in this state today – including New York City – with boundary lines within the district that keep children of wealth starkly separated from children of poverty -- and we know from our history that segregation – whether it’s economic or racial -- breeds inequality.

The facts are plain: America spends less to educate poor children than wealthy children. Fewer poor children have access to high quality pre-school. Poor children are often assigned to less effective teachers and have fewer resources in their schools.

They have fewer after-school programs and fewer social and emotional supports. If they are high achieving students, they have less access to rigorous courses and they are far less likely to go to a top-notch college.

By every single measure – whether it is classroom grades or test scores, or high school and college graduation rates, our children of poverty and children of color are further behind, and the promise of equality through education still eludes us.

I would be hard-pressed to find any disagreement with Dr. King in any of these important points. Clearly, the challenges facing many public schools revolve around race and poverty issues. As I have already alluded to, where I strongly disagree with Dr. King is in identifying the solutions for these societal problems and in his overly simplified and exaggerated dismissal of those who oppose Common Core and the ancillary reforms.

Among the litany of solutions for Dr. King are charter schools. Although Dr. King tries to make the point that charter schools outperform public schools, the facts tell a different story. In a 2013 study conducted at Stanford University, 25-29% of the charters outperformed public schools in the areas of growth on reading and math. Most demonstrated no significant statistical gains. Other concerns surrounding charter schools have been well-documented- increased suspension rates, high levels of expelled students with special needs and behavioral problems and more. Clearly, public schools are not in any position to do any of this.

Dr. King also offers a flippant description of those who oppose his reforms:

You’ve seen it in the media and in the political arena. You’ve seen it in schools and communities across the state where some parents, some educators, some union leaders and some politicians say the standards are too high. They argue that we should not hold ourselves accountable for student learning.

Being against the use of no-stakes, poorly written standardized assessments as a means for assessing achievement and determining teacher effectiveness, and therefore accountability, is not the same as refusing to be accountable. Most teachers I know want accountability. We want accountability as a means to clean up our profession and strengthen our positions in our community. We acknowledge that every field has members whose actions, or inaction's, reflect poorly on the whole. We recognize that, in order to be viewed as fully professional, we have to have a means for accountability. We just want it to be conducted in a fair and effective manner, using evidence and data that is relevant and reflective.

I think we can all agree on the problems facing our schools and on a larger scale our society. As income inequality continues to grow and more and more people are preoccupied with providing for their families, the ability for low-income and middle income families to provide educational support, assistance and supervision  for their children has dwindled. When parents are too busy working multiple jobs to provide food and shelter, they simply do not have the time to devote to these important tasks. Children from well-educated, professional and wealthy families will always do better as a group. The solutions are in finding ways to make the problems of poverty less damaging to the lives of the children with fewer supports.

This is why the story of Finland is so important. Finland continually scores high on all metrics associated with international testing. Yet, despite the fact that Finland has a growing income inequality that is comparable to the United States they continue to achieve at all income levels. It's what Finland does to resolve these problems that is important in explaining why Finnish children, regardless of socio-economic status, score high on international tests. 

In Finnish schools, ALL children receive breakfast and lunch, ALL children receive the same educational instruction, ALL teachers are treated as highly trained professionals and continue to receive high quality professional development throughout their careers. There is little to NO standardized testing, university education is FREE and medical care is provided to ALL students at schools. There are no charter schools or voucher programs and very few private schools. Their students attend less school per year, spend more time playing at school, and have less homework than American students.

So why do we NOT learn from the Finnish model and implement their strategies and practices? Maybe because there is little to no room for profiteering and it looks and sounds far too much like that dreaded SOCIALISM. Many people look toward other high scoring countries for examples, but the structural divergence between who tests and who doesn't is less egalitarian. We cannot, and don't want to duplicate nations like Singapore or cities like Shanghai. 

If we want to solve our educational problems, we must deal effectively with poverty. Until we can provide for the non-educational needs of all of our children, we will not be able to expect them to be concerned about learning. Living in poverty provides children with endless distractions and few opportunities when compared to their more affluent peers. What the Finnish model does is provide a framework for a society that educates 100% of its children from a variety of social and economic backgrounds in a highly effective manner. Dr. King and other reformers must grasp these models and institute policies that have proven to be effective elsewhere. 

The direction the United States is moving is a path of educational destruction. In the end, reformers are making promises that their policies cannot fulfill.