Standardized Public Education

In his recent thread on the outlines of what ed reform is pushing for, Charlie included this in a comment as another facet:

Standardized Curriculum - Reformers push the idea of standardized curricula, not only across classrooms within a school, but across schools within a district, across districts within a state, and, with the Common Core, across all states in the country. Standardized Curricula leads directly to standardized instruction - teachers essentially working off a script and pacing guide and being judged on their "fidelity of implementation". This boils down to every classroom in the country being on page 56 on the same day. This includes the ideas of vertical and horizontal articulation. Not only does this rob teachers of their autonomy and thereby de-professionalize teaching, but it is antithetical to differentiated instruction and therefore it worsens education for students. This is the first step towards delivering teaching through some process other than face-to-face contact between a teacher and a student who have a relationship.

A lot of Education Reform is focused on the idea of increasing productivity. The productivity cap is created by the requirement of a student-teacher relationship. The only way to increase productivity is to by-pass that relationship.

But that relationship is essential to learning. Teaching is a creative, improvisational act that is driven by the dynamic and unpredictable interaction between two real, live human beings. The students respond to the teacher and the teacher then responds to each student in an ongoing back-and-forth. This dialog can - and does - follow a myriad of paths that cannot be predicted or pre-programmed. It is like the universe of all possible chess games. Teachers get better over time because they have more experience and learn what moves to make in response to the students moves.

Anyway, standardized curricula de-professionalizes teaching and is a step on the path to replace teachers with machines. It worsens education but promises savings.

End of Charlie's statement.

On the heels of that statement was this story about Rocketship, the highly touted charter school based in California from AlterNet.  It's called, "Major Charter School Chain's Classrooms Look Like Cubicles for Telemarketers."

From Silicon Valley, the Rocketship chain of charter schools is hoping to expand across the country. It’s backed by some of the biggest names in the tech world and claims high test scores. 

Rocketship leaders brag that they think outside the box. Teachers, for instance—who needs them? The company says it saves half a million dollars a year by using fewer teachers, replacing them with non-certified instructors at $15 per hour. 

These instructors monitor up to 130 kids at a time in cubicles in the schools’ computer labs. Rocketeers, as students are called, sit looking at computer screens up to two hours per day, supposedly learning by solving puzzles. 

 Rocketship’s schools are in California, Wisconsin, and Tennessee with plans to expand into Indianapolis, D.C., and New Orleans: 25,000 students by 2017. 


And who ARE their teachers?

It’s no coincidence that Rocketship employs the same kind of de-professionalized, non-union workforce it seems to be training. Half its teachers have less than two years’ experience; 75 percent come from Teach for America. 

What about all that time in front of a screen?

Critics of the Rocketship model cite the American Association of Pediatrics, which recommends less than two hours of screen time per day—total. 

When you figure in that kids will be on computers and phones when they aren’t in school, too—they spend on average seven hours a day on various devices as it is—it raises a red flag. 

Skeptics say the Rocketship test scores just demonstrate the schools are focusing on test preparation at the expense of arts, languages, and real learning. 

Who are their supporters?  

Rocketship’s board and advisors represent the Gates, Walton, and Broad Foundations—familiar faces in corporate “education reform.” Benefactors include Facebook, Netflix, and Skype. 

So who are they attracting in the classrooms?

Rocketship targets low-income students, making them the guinea pigs for the cubicle model of education. 


In fact, the chain is already scrapping the 100-cubicle learning labs for its older students, fourth and fifth graders. Students weren’t always engaged, and sometimes were just staring at the screen and guessing. 

To hear their enthusiasm, you might imagine the tech elites would be dropping their kids off every day for these cutting-edge education experiments. But instead, many Silicon Valley leaders send their kids to private schools like Waldorf Peninsula—whose philosophy is to avoid computers, arguing that they hurt children’s development and attention spans. 

Folks, no one is arguing that some teaching and learning can't be by computer.  Indeed for students in isolated or rural areas, it will open doors.  For students who want the ease of learning on their own time, it's access to time (and/or classes not available in their schools).

Common Core is based on computer-adaptive testing. So that means every single school must have the technology to give those assessments.

But two hours a day in front of screen at school?  As the newest inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - Hall and Oates  - would say, "I can't go for that, (no can do)."