Monday, October 23, 2006
First Principles
Today, Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post argues that a take over of D.C. schools by Adrian Fenty may not be a great idea.
And when times are desperate about just what should be done regarding public education in the nations capital and people are at the end of their rope after the introduction of charter schools, private school vouchers, school choice, NCLB, and a new superintendent, with standardized test scores that seem to show that nothing is working, it is best to stop, take a breath, and go back to first principles.
Much of today's reform movement came about due to a book published in 1990 by John Chubb (now with Edison Schools) and Terry Moe when they were both with the Brookings Institution entitled Politics, Markets and America's Schools. In this book the authors studied 500 schools to see what characteristics made some of them high performing.
Their conclusion was that it was not class size, money, teacher training, or curriculums that led to successful schools. It was simply the ability of the administration to innovate. Their controversial finding led them to call for increased use of private school vouchers.
A take over of the schools by Mr. Fenty would almost certainly reduce the ability of schools to innovate. But there is a more important reason to be worried about his plan.
There is talk that he wants to follow New York Mayor Bloomberg's model of control over education. In NYC, the Mayor and Joel Klein have implemented a curriculum that focuses only on reading and math. This is no surprise since AYP measures student aptitude in these subjects. But we know that this is not the best way to reach children, especially those from disadvantaged homes. We need to include the arts. And here is why.
Robert Pirsig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that quality is composed of 2 components, the classic and the romantic. To understand his point consider a quality house. To be good the structure must have a pleasant design (the romantic side) and excellent materials (the classic side.) A beautiful appearance does not make the house good if it falls down when the wind blows. Also, solid walls do not produce a fine establishment if it is ugly.
So Pirsig thought that to have true quality you just have to add classic and romantic elements. But then he could not figure out how you know what to include. It took him years to realize that he had the equation backwards.
He was trying to teach students how to write when he realized he had made a mistake. When he tried to demonstrate composition he only received imitations of his instructions. But when he asked his students to write quality essays, without telling them what quality meant, he found that they could agree among themselves which ones were good.
What he discovered was that true quality is not the addition of the romantic and classic but that our understanding of quality allows us to determine which romantic and classic elements to include.
The author went on to propose that true quality can only be realized once we have reached a certain peace of mind. I have written that one way this peace of mind is obtainable is from the appreciation of fine art.
If fine art allows us to see the classic and romantic elements of true quality then to leave art out of the classroom is a detriment to children being able to see these ingredients in whatever is being taught.
It is just this simple.
PermaLink | 6:19 AM |
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And when times are desperate about just what should be done regarding public education in the nations capital and people are at the end of their rope after the introduction of charter schools, private school vouchers, school choice, NCLB, and a new superintendent, with standardized test scores that seem to show that nothing is working, it is best to stop, take a breath, and go back to first principles.
Much of today's reform movement came about due to a book published in 1990 by John Chubb (now with Edison Schools) and Terry Moe when they were both with the Brookings Institution entitled Politics, Markets and America's Schools. In this book the authors studied 500 schools to see what characteristics made some of them high performing.
Their conclusion was that it was not class size, money, teacher training, or curriculums that led to successful schools. It was simply the ability of the administration to innovate. Their controversial finding led them to call for increased use of private school vouchers.
A take over of the schools by Mr. Fenty would almost certainly reduce the ability of schools to innovate. But there is a more important reason to be worried about his plan.
There is talk that he wants to follow New York Mayor Bloomberg's model of control over education. In NYC, the Mayor and Joel Klein have implemented a curriculum that focuses only on reading and math. This is no surprise since AYP measures student aptitude in these subjects. But we know that this is not the best way to reach children, especially those from disadvantaged homes. We need to include the arts. And here is why.
Robert Pirsig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that quality is composed of 2 components, the classic and the romantic. To understand his point consider a quality house. To be good the structure must have a pleasant design (the romantic side) and excellent materials (the classic side.) A beautiful appearance does not make the house good if it falls down when the wind blows. Also, solid walls do not produce a fine establishment if it is ugly.
So Pirsig thought that to have true quality you just have to add classic and romantic elements. But then he could not figure out how you know what to include. It took him years to realize that he had the equation backwards.
He was trying to teach students how to write when he realized he had made a mistake. When he tried to demonstrate composition he only received imitations of his instructions. But when he asked his students to write quality essays, without telling them what quality meant, he found that they could agree among themselves which ones were good.
What he discovered was that true quality is not the addition of the romantic and classic but that our understanding of quality allows us to determine which romantic and classic elements to include.
The author went on to propose that true quality can only be realized once we have reached a certain peace of mind. I have written that one way this peace of mind is obtainable is from the appreciation of fine art.
If fine art allows us to see the classic and romantic elements of true quality then to leave art out of the classroom is a detriment to children being able to see these ingredients in whatever is being taught.
It is just this simple.
PermaLink | 6:19 AM |
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