Think Tanks vs Reality

The aphorism goes “Everyone is entitled to their opinion.” It doesn't mean they need to say it. Or that it needs to be published. But the Buffalo News (in order to be “fair and balanced,” whatever that is supposed to mean) allows people to have their opinions published in the Viewpoints and Op-Ed section.

And, again, we have an article in the News from a person that basically demands that we tie education funding to performance. It comes from Doug Mesecar, who worked in the US Department of Education and US House of Representatives Education and Workforce Committee.

Does that make him qualified to comment on matters of education? How many years of teaching does he have under his belt? Not mentioned in the article. Does he even have a teaching degree or any teaching certificates? Not mentioned. It would certainly bolster his argument.

Where does he work? At the Lexington Institute. A think tank. I don't have much of a positive opinion of think tanks. They keep advocating capitalist ideas that, over time, always fail.

What is he advocating? “Performance based funding” aka “pay for success.” If it works, you'll get money for it.

One (major) problem. And any teacher will tell you this – every student learns differently. So what works well with one student might not work well with another. Or what works well with one class might epically bomb with another.

I have a student that thrives on flash cards. Loves them. Math equations, definitions, history dates, you name it. If it can be slapped on a flash card, they'll learn it.

I have a student that really blew at math. They needed an IEP (Individualized Educational Plan) for math that showed little to no improvement in the student's math scores or ability. The father, in a fit of “I've got to try something” found this Vedic Math series on DVD. (It's how the people from India learn math from what I have been told. Goes way back to ancient times according to the student.) Did the program over the summer and is now killing math class. The only problem is that when they explain how they solve a problem, it is not in the way that Common Core says it should be solved. And they explain it in this Indian voice. The student has a comedic sense of learning (I guess) and anything that they can impersonate or make fun of they remember with near photographic ability.

The kicker: The student gets the correct answer on virtually every math question posed. But because they are not solving it in the proscribed Common Core method, they can not receive full credit on the test. The student's attitude towards Common Core is that it can go engage in an act of self copulation. (Stated in much less kind words.) That earned them a detention for use of profanity in the classroom. And people find the Indian voice that they use to explain things very insulting. (I watched the introduction to the video series. The student matches the scansion, intonation, and accents of the Indian professor that teaches the video series.) But it's wrong for the student to use this method because it does not comply with the standards.

Never mind that the student is in 9^th grade and is helping students in pre-calculus and calculus class solve their math problems.

I have another student that does their best work while walking around and talking to themselves. Quietly. On the street people think they are crazy. Nope. They have a more physical and verbal learning style. And they have to sit still and be quiet during the exam.

There are the artists – You should see the one Biology notebook. The work is amazing and the student spends time in study hall and after school going over the notes and turning them into images so that they can remember the information. (The 3-D picture of a cell and all its components is amazing. And in color.)

I can go on.

Is this something that Mesecar would advocate for? Teaching teachers how to work with different learning styles so that each student can succeed based upon their own individual strengths?

I doubt it.

That would take too much time and cost way too much money.

The sad thing is that people that advocate for education “reforms” are rarely teachers themselves and have next to no teaching experience whatsoever.

And at that, they see students as widgets on a factory line waiting to be assembled. In reality, information is not dumped into students' heads waiting to be regurgitated. That's far from reality. In reality knowledge is constructed and then applied.

Something that Mesecar probably doesn't know or realize because he is more of an administrative desk jockey than an actual teacher.

The other side of the story is that “pay for success” punishes those that need the funding the most – poor schools/districts and/or schools with high levels of poverty. So school districts that are wealthy and tend to do better on the standardized tests will see more money sent their way. Meanwhile, back in reality, schools that need the money are going to be ineligible because their students are performing poorly on the tests.

Mesecar could look at Michelle Rhee and her experience in Washington DC with the testing scandal. Somehow she is still allowed to be a spokesperson for education reform. Then again, she is all about privatization of schools, so…

Or he could look at what happened in Atlanta with the testing problems that happened there.

In both cases teachers were caught changing answers on exams.

Is that something he is willing to pay for?

While he advocates for “pay for success” he never tells us that it really works. Not in education or in the real world, Everything that I have read on carrot and stick motivation always fails. And that is exactly what Mesecar is advocating. A failed motivational philosophy.

He never addresses the major underlying problem in student achievement – Poverty.

In another article in the same section a Professor in Education talks about the impact of poverty on education.

Somehow I don't think that Mesecar will want to read that article or address that problem.

Until that is addressed, there will be no success for many students.