… do tipo de dilema que enfrentamos em matéria de política educacional, com a descrição da narrativa da crise destinada a legitimar a desregulação e entrega de recursos públicos a interesses privados por parte de falsos salvadores de um sistema educativo que dizem em crise, apesar das evidências em contrário.
Diane Ravitch foi secretária de Estado na administração do pai Bush, pelo que dificilmente poderá ser considerada uma ferrenha esquerdista e estatista.
O que ela descreve é a desmontagem da tal narrativa, aquela que nos querem vender cá, de rosto descoberto ou encoberto, graças a umas visitinhas aos states dos muñozes&queirozes.
Diane Ravitch, The Reign of Error, pp. 3-9.
Anúncios
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 12:44 pm
Nuno Crato quere-nos impingir um suposto modelo, com barbas brancas, de sucesso americano.
Algo que não funciona nos EUA nem em nenhum País onde foi testado. No entanto é modelo que dá um lucro, muito, a alguns próximos do actual poder!
O bom senso diz-nos que devemos denunciar esta campanha, que é deste MEC (que até dentro do PSD é contestado, pois esta não é a matriz do partido) e não de outros ministros que o antecederam.
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 12:55 pm
Isto não vai com conversa. Este país e povo é só blá, blá, blá, mas não têm ação nenhuma.
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 1:00 pm
#2,
E o meu caro anónimo, que nem o nome dá, tem feito o quê para além do blá-blá?
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 1:13 pm
O problema é que todas as instâncias europeias seguem o mesmo modelo e o mantra do Capitalismo é agora o mesmo em todo o lado:
só deve ser apoado e subsidiado aquilo que dá lucro e permite uma acumulação de mais-valia numa escala cada vez maior.
Daí a esterilidade dos pseudo debates sobre o eduquês e o cratês, porque a cartilha é uma e só uma; aquela que a Nomenklatura mundial impõe na CEE, na OCDE no Banco Mundial e no FMI.
A escola deve ser reduzida ao valor mínimo em termos de despesa para produzir apenas e tão só os recursos para o sistema capitalista, cabendo a formação dos “eleitos” a um restrito clube de instituições escolhidas para o efeito.
Nos intervalos reproduzem-se os oportunistas e filisteus que acumulam riqueza à custa da mercantilização da educação.
A educação é encarada apenas como um instrumento de reprodução de animais domesticados pelo e para o Capital.
Não é com lutas do séc XIX que se combate o capitalismo do séc. XXI
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 1:38 pm
Excelente resumo, sem dúvida! Está lá tudo, clarinho como água.
E para quem já conhece a narrativa subjacente, parece o reencontro com um conjunto de evidências, evidências a que só a cegueira ideológica e a cupidez exacerbada conseguem ficar insensíveis.
Se as políticas educativas de NC forem levadas até ao fim, recolheremos então os mesmos resultados desastrosos, os mesmos destroços sociais e culturais: uma escola constituída como foco de clivagens e de desigualdade social e uma qualidade de ensino ainda mais degradada (quando muito, maquilhada pelo fogo fátuo da examocracia).
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 1:49 pm
CHAPTER 1
Our Schools Are at Risk
In the early years of the twenty-first century, a bipartisan consensus arose about educational policy in the United States. Right and left, Democrats and Republicans, the leading members of our political class and our media elite seemed to agree: Public education is broken. Our students are not learning enough. Public schools are bad and getting worse. We are being beaten by other nations with higher test scores. Our abysmal public schools threaten not only the performance of our economy but our national security, our very survival as a nation. This crisis is so profound that half measures and tweaks will not suffice. Schools must be closed and large numbers of teachers fired. Anyone who doubts this is unaware of the dimensions of the crisis or has a vested interest in defending the status quo.
Furthermore, according to this logic, now widely shared among policy makers and opinion shapers, blame must fall on the shoulders of teachers and principals. Where test scores are low, it is their fault. They should be held accountable for this educational catastrophe. They are responsible because they have become comfortable with the status quo of low expectations and low achievement, more interested in their pensions than in the children they teach.
In response to this crisis, the reformers have a ready path for solving it. Since teachers are the problem, their job protections must be eliminated and teachers must be fired. Teachers’ unions must be opposed at every turn. The “hoops and hurdles” that limit entry into teaching must be eliminated. Teachers must be evaluated on the basis of their students’ test scores. Public schools must be evaluated on an “objective” basis, and when they are failing, they must be closed. Students must be given choices other than traditional public schools, such as charter schools, vouchers, and online schools.
In Hollywood films and television documentaries, the battle lines are clearly drawn. Traditional public schools are bad; their supporters are apologists for the unions. Those who advocate for charter schools, virtual schooling, and “school choice” are reformers; their supporters insist they are championing the rights of minorities. They say they are leaders of the civil rights movement of our day.
It is a compelling narrative, one that gives us easy villains and ready-made solutions. It appeals to values Americans have traditionally cherished—choice, freedom, optimism, and a latent distrust of government.
There is only one problem with this narrative.
It is wrong.
Public education is not broken. It is not failing or declining. The diagnosis is wrong, and the solutions of the corporate reformers are wrong. Our urban schools are in trouble because of concentrated poverty and racial segregation. But public education as such is not “broken.” Public education is in a crisis only so far as society is and only so far as this new narrative of crisis has destabilized it. The solutions proposed by the self-proclaimed reformers have not worked as promised. They have failed even by their own most highly valued measure, which is test scores. At the same time, the reformers’ solutions have had a destructive impact on education as a whole.
Far from being progressive, these changes strike at the heart of one of our nation’s most valued institutions. Liberals, progressives, well-meaning people have lent their support to a project that is antithetical to liberalism and progressivism. By supporting market-based “reforms,” they have allied themselves with those who seek to destroy public education. They are being used by those who have an implacable hostility toward the public sector. The transfer of public funds to private management and the creation of thousands of deregulated, unsupervised, and unaccountable schools have opened the public coffers to profiteering, fraud, and exploitation by large and small entrepreneurs.
As a historian of American education, I have seen, studied, and written about waves of school reforms that came and went. But what is happening now is an astonishing development. It is not meant to reform public education but is a deliberate effort to replace public education with a privately managed, free-market system of schooling. Public education, established in America’s towns and villages in the mid-nineteenth century, born of advocacy and struggle, is now in jeopardy. This essential institution, responsible for producing a democratic citizenry and tasked with providing equality of educational opportunity, is at risk. Under the cover of “choice” and “freedom,” we may lose one of our society’s greatest resources, our public school system —a a system whose doors are open to all.
I was not always a critic of test-based accountability and choice. For many years, I too agreed that our public schools were in crisis. I wanted them to be far better. I worried about the content of the curriculum. I worried about low standards for students and for teachers. As a graduate of the public schools of Houston, I was an ambivalent supporter of school choice and certainly had no desire to replace public education with a voucherized, privately managed system of schools. In 1991-93, I served as assistant secretary of education in the administration of President George H. W. Bush, and I was in charge of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement. I was a strong supporter of standards, testing, and accountability. It was only after I saw the corrosive effects of No Child Left Behind that I reconsidered my long-held beliefs. In 2010, I published The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Under-mining Education. In that book, I recanted my earlier support for what is now known as the “reform” agenda in education: high-stakes testing, test-based accountability, competition, and school choice (charters and vouchers). When the book appeared, it was widely reviewed, hailed by most experienced educators, and predictably scorned by advocates of these policies.
Their most typical complaint was that while I was long on criticism, I offered no solutions. They, on the other hand, had solutions.
I contend that their solutions are not working. Some are demonstrably wrong. Some, like charter schools, have potential if the profit motive were removed, and if the concept were redesigned to meet the needs of the communities served rather than the plans of entrepreneurs. It is far better to stop and think than to plunge ahead vigorously, doing what is not only ineffective but wrong. We must always be open to trying new ideas in the schools, but we should try them first on a small scale and gather evidence before applying and mandating new ideas nationwide. When evidence is lacking, we should not move forward with a sense of urgency. The reformers are putting the nation’s children on a train that is headed for a cliff. This is the right time to stand on the tracks, wave a lantern, and say, “Wait, this won’t work. Stop the train. Pick a different route.” But the reformers say, “That’s no solution. Full speed ahead,” aiming right for the cliff.
What began as a movement for testing and accountability has turned into a privatization movement. President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind, with its unrealistic goals, has fed the privatization frenzy. The overreliance on and misuse of testing and data have created a sense of crisis, lending credibility to claims that American public education is failing and in decline. Yes, we have problems, but those problems are concentrated where poverty and racial segregation are concentrated. The reformers say they care about poverty, but they do not address it other than to insist upon private management of the schools in urban districts; the reformers ignore racial segregation altogether, apparently accepting it as inevitable. Thus, they leave the root causes of low academic performance undisturbed. What began as a movement to “save minority children from failing schools” and narrow the achievement gap by privatizing their schools has not accomplished that goal, but the movement is undaunted. It is now intent on advancing into middle-income districts in the cities and suburbs as well. This is already happening.
In this book, I will show why the reform agenda does not work, who is behind it, and how it is promoting the privatization of public education. I will then put forward my solutions, none of which is cheap or easy, none of which offers a quick fix to complicated problems. I have no silver bullets—because none exist—but I have proposals based on evidence and experience.
We know what works. What works are the very opportunities that advantaged families provide for their children. In homes with adequate resources, children get advantages that enable them to arrive in school healthy and ready to learn. Discerning, affluent parents demand schools with full curricula, experienced staffs, rich programs in the arts, libraries, well-maintained campuses, and small classes. As a society, we must do whatever is necessary to extend the same advantages to children who do not have them. Doing so will improve their ability to learn, enhance their chances for a good life, and strengthen our society.
So that readers don’t have to wait until the later chapters of this book, here is a summary of my solutions to improve both schools and society. Schools and society are intertwined. The supporting research comes later in the book. Every one of these solutions works to improve the lives and academic outcomes of young people.
Pregnant women should see a doctor early in their pregnancies and have regular care and good nutrition. Poor women who do not receive early and regular medical care are likely to have babies with developmental and cognitive problems.
Children need prekindergarten classes that teach them how to socialize with others, how to listen and learn, how to communicate well, and how to care for themselves, while engaging in the joyful pursuit of play and learning that is appropriate to their age and development and that builds their background knowledge and vocabulary.
Children in the early elementary grades need teachers who set age-appropriate goals. They should learn to read, write, calculate, and explore nature, and they should have plenty of time to sing and dance and draw and play and giggle. Classes in these grades should be small enough—ideally fewer than twenty—so that students get the individual attention they need. Testing in the early grades should be used sparingly, not to rank students, but diagnostically, to help determine what they know and what they still need to learn. Test scores should remain a private matter between parents and teachers, not shared with the district or the state for any individual student. The district or state may aggregate scores for entire schools but should not judge teachers or schools on the basis of these scores.
As students enter the upper elementary grades and middle school and high school, they should have a balanced curriculum that includes not only reading, writing, and mathematics but the sciences, literature, history, geography, civics, and foreign languages. Their school should have a rich arts program, where students learn to sing, dance, play an instrument, join an orchestra or a band, perform in a play, sculpt, or use technology to design structures, conduct research, or create artworks. Every student should have time for physical education every day. Every school should have a library with librarians and media specialists. Every school should have a nurse, a psychologist, a guidance counsellor, and a social worker. And every school should have after-school programs where students may explore their interests, whether in athletics, chess, robotics, history club, dramatics, science club, nature study, Scouting, or other activities. Teachers should write their own tests and use standardized tests only for diagnostic purposes. Classes should be small enough to ensure that every teacher knows his or her students and can provide the sort of feedback to strengthen their ability to write, their noncognitive skills, their critical thinking, and their mathematical and scientific acumen.
Our society should commit to building a strong education profession. Public policy should aim to raise the standards for entry into teaching. Teachers should be well-educated and well-prepared for their profession. Principals and superintendents should be experienced educators.
Schools should have the resources they need for the students they enroll.
As a society, we must establish goals, strategies, and programs to reduce poverty and racial segregation. Only by eliminating opportunity gaps can we eliminate achievement gaps. Poor and immigrant children need the same sorts of schools that wealthy children have, only more so. Those who start life with the fewest advantages need even smaller classes, even more art, science, and music to engage them, to spark their creativity, and to fulfill their potential.
There is a solid research base for my recommendations. If you want a society organized to promote the survival of the fittest and the triumph of the most advantaged, then you will prefer the current course of action, where children and teachers and schools are “racing to the top.” But if you believe the goal of our society should be equality of opportunity for all children and that we should seek to reduce the alarming inequalities children now experience, then my program should win your support.
My premise is straightforward: you can’t do the right things until you stop doing the wrong things. If you insist on driving that train right over the cliff, you will never reach your hoped-for destination of excellence for all. Instead, you will inflict harm on millions of children and reduce the quality of their educations. You will squander billions of dollars on failed schemes that should have been spent on realistic, evidence-based ways of improving our public schools, our society, and the lives of children.
Stop doing the wrong things. Stop promoting competition and choice as answers to the very inequality that was created by competition and choice. Stop the mindless attacks on the education profession. A good society requires both a vibrant private sector and a responsible public sector. We must not permit the public sector to be privatized and eviscerated. In a democracy, important social goals require social collaboration. We must work to establish programs that improve the lives of children and families. To build a strong educational system, we need to build a strong and respected education profession. The federal government and states must develop policies to recruit, support, and retain career educators, both in the classroom and in positions of leadership. If we mean to conquer educational inequity, we must recognize that the root causes of poor academic performance are segregation and poverty, along with inequitably resourced schools. We must act decisively to reduce the causes of inequity. We know what good schools look like, we know what great education consists of. We must bring good schools to every district and neighborhood in our nation. Public education is a basic public responsibility: we must not be persuaded by a false crisis narrative to privatize it. It is time for parents, educators, and other concerned citizens to join together to strengthen our public schools and preserve them for future generations. The future of our democracy depends on it.
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 2:22 pm
Ampliando as imagens das páginas l~e-se muito bem.
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 2:37 pm
O essencial:
Only by eliminating opportunity gaps can we eliminate achievement gaps.
The overreliance on and misuse of testing and data have created a sense of crisis, lending credibility to claims that American public education is failing and in decline. Yes, we have problems, but those problems are concentrated where poverty and racial segregation are concentrated.
We know what works. What works are the very opportunities that advantaged families provide for their children. In homes with adequate resources, children get advantages that enable them to arrive in school healthy and ready to learn. Discerning, affluent parents demand schools with full curricula, experienced staffs, rich programs in the arts, libraries, well-maintained campuses, and small classes.
Só não acredito que o capitalismo permita inverter a tendência ( anível global) para a criação de uma reserva astronómica de seres humanos excedentários e sem utilidade ( a não ser a pressão sobre o valor da força de trabalho e o pretexto para o controlo e repressão dos Estados).
Basta ver o que se passa em geral em África, no Iraque, na Síria etc.
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 3:02 pm
Convém repara ainda neste ponto essencial:
A partir do texto, e se tivermos atenção, perceberemos também a linha de continuidade que atravessa as políticas educativas de MLR e NC.
Senão, veja-se a coincidência no diagnóstico: a culpa e a desconfiança atiradas para cima dos professores, constituídos como bodes expiatórios do sistema; no caso de MLR, consubstanciadas quer na fórmula programática “perdi os professores, mas ganhei a população”, quer na sua ADD; em NC, no prosseguimento da mesma ADD e levada ao cume na PACC.
E a uma lógica idêntica para “resolver” os problemas de insucesso do sistema: atacando os professores, abre-se então melhor o caminho para o facilitismo, que conduz, por sua vez, ao sucesso estatístico, visado embora sob perspectivas diferentes; em MLR, a insistência na “pedagogia do sucesso” e a aposta nas NO, numa perspectiva paternalista-assistencialista; em NC, a examocracia (uma forma mais sibilina de facilitismo: só interessam os resultados, os meios – o mais complicado, que são os processos – são irrelevantes) e o Ensino Vocacional, ambos numa perspectiva tendencialmente excludente, embora a primeira vista as roupagens mais subtis da meritocracia.
Desse modo, em ambos, tem que se registar, não apenas a incapacidade para atacar os aspectos críticos do sistema, que bloqueiam um progresso consistente – a saber, a quebra da autoridade dos professores e um investimento sério e criterioso nos diferentes meios e recursos -, como sobretudo um desastroso contributo para o agravamento dos mesmos.
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 4:14 pm
#3 A resposta está na própria frase! Também sou português e esse é o problema. Somos um povo que espera que as coisas se resolvam sem muitas ondas, mas a verdade é que cada vez há mais injustiça e muitos já chegaram certamente à mesma conclusão.
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 4:26 pm
Tá tudo a correr bem: taxas de mortalidade infantil a subir e esperança média de vida a descer. É possível fazer grandes transformações em pouco tempo.
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 4:31 pm
#11 Ter sentido de humor, é muito importante! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 4:54 pm
«Janeiro 2, 2014 at 1:13 pm»
São quase 5 da tarde, parece que demora a descobrir e divulgar à malta como é que se combate o capitalismo do século XXI. Ou então o h5n1 fala por símbolos, como no “Código Da Vinci”.
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 7:31 pm
Já encomendei esse livro. Já o anterior “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Undermine Education” constituía um severo ataque às escolas privadas financiadas com dinheiros públicos. As suas opiniões são frequentemente fundadas na evidência e não são enunciados dogmáticos baseados na crença ideológica de ex maoistas que querem esconjurar os pecados de juventude com cartilhas novas, opostas às primeiras, para pacificarem a sua ainda pesada consciência. E fazem-no manipulando dados, omitindo outros nunca se sujeitando à verdade factual e à evidência experimental, ja que aqueles cérebros continuam organicamente, logo estruturalmente, maoistas!
Janeiro 2, 2014 at 7:52 pm
#13
Há manuais à venda na Amazon na secção de pastoreio.
Janeiro 3, 2014 at 3:13 am
h5n1 continua a falar na sua linguagem hermética de anarco-ocultista da treta, que isto do «combate contra o capitalismo» é uma coisa de iniciados.