Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Where are our educational dollars going?
Do you know where your educational dollars are going? Most people assume, and with good reason, that the property taxes and other taxes that contribute to education that we all pay do go to fund public education. Whether you have children of school age or no children at all, the allocation and spending of our hard-earned money on education should be a concern to us all. In the U.S. we believe in a free public education for every child, as that is what is most likely to help students grow up and become productive, tax-paying citizens like the rest of us. If we do not teach children well, they can and often do become a burden on society. It is much cheaper to educate children well and get them a high school diploma than it is to have them in and out of correctional institutions all their lives.
No Child Left Behind has forced us to spend our education dollars on testing services that give us a one-day, one-shot look at what students know on a multiple-choice exam. These testing companies, such as NCS Pearson, Inc. are private companies taking money out of the general education fund for this one day test. Did you know that the new STAAR test that will replace TAKS cost nearly $1 billion just to develop?! On top of that, NCS Pearson charges Texas schools nearly $95 million per year (up from $9.5 million per year in 2005) just to administer and grade the standardized tests, which unavoidably contain some flaws in their construction and wording. This causes us to wonder if the tests actually measure what they are supposed to measure. How much of a difference would it make if we were to spend that money on resources, teachers, and buildings for our public schools?
With the progressively higher passing rates on the standardized tests every year (which are unattainable and unrealistic goals), schools that provide services in their communities are being labeled as failures and this is being used to rationalize the closing of schools. What are these neighborhoods going to do? Most Americans cannot afford to send their children to private schools, so closing the neighborhood school does little to help most of us.
NCLB is resulting in the privatization of public education in more ways as well. This includes money being spent on test-prep programs that do not teach the students any of the content knowledge but instead how to answer specific types of questions, boring materials to help students prepare for the test, as well as Supplemental Educational Services required by NCLB. All of these programs and projects take money directly out of our education fund and puts it directly in the hands of private, for-profit businesses.
Where have we gone when we are willing to spend millions, indeed billions, of dollars on a one-day, one-shot test but we cannot agree to educate all of our children equally? These private companies are sucking money out of our already meager and underfunded education funds and they do not make education any better. The standardized testing reform movement, like many educational reforms, has not delivered as promised. We, as a society, owe it to our children to take a step back and see if our children are benefitting from the privatization of education. If not, as concerned citizens, we should start a discussion as to what the next steps towards improving the education system in our local communities and states should be, including all shareholders. No one group or body should make all the decisions that affect us all.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Blueberry Story by Jamie Vollmer
The Blueberry Story
A business leader learns his lesson.
by Jamie Robert Vollmer
Special Note: The author of this story was gracious enough to give us permission to reprint his story and added this comment. "I have received many kind words for telling the Blueberry story, but the real credit goes to the teacher. I took some license with her comments for publication, but she was eloquent and passionate; she did an amazing job of both crystallizing the message and waking me up. My teenagers would have called me a "slug" had I not been changed by her words."
'If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn't be in business very long!"
I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of in- service training. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife.
I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the middle-1980s when People Magazine chose its blueberry flavor as the "Best Ice Cream in America."
I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the Industrial Age and out of step with the needs of our emerging "knowledge society." Second, educators were a major part of the problem: They resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! Total Quality Management! Continuous improvement!
A school is not an ice cream company: It can't send back its inferior blueberries.
In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced—equal parts ignorance and arrogance.
As soon as I finished, a woman's hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.
She began quietly, "We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream."
I smugly replied, "Best ice cream in America, ma'am."
"How nice," she said. "Is it rich and smooth?"
"Sixteen percent butterfat," I crowed.
"Premium ingredients?" she inquired.
"Super-premium! Nothing but triple-A." I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.
"Mr. Vollmer," she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, "when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?"
In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap. I was dead meat, but I wasn't going to lie.
"I send them back."
"That's right!" she barked, "and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all. Every one. And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it's not a business. It's school."
In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!"
Schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.
And so began my long transformation.
Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night.
None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a postindustrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.
Jamie Robert Vollmer, a former business executive and attorney, is now a keynote presenter and consultant who works to increase community support for public schools. He lives in Fairfield, Iowa, and can be reached by e-mail at jamie@jamievollmer.com.
A business leader learns his lesson.
by Jamie Robert Vollmer
Special Note: The author of this story was gracious enough to give us permission to reprint his story and added this comment. "I have received many kind words for telling the Blueberry story, but the real credit goes to the teacher. I took some license with her comments for publication, but she was eloquent and passionate; she did an amazing job of both crystallizing the message and waking me up. My teenagers would have called me a "slug" had I not been changed by her words."
'If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn't be in business very long!"
I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of in- service training. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife.
I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the middle-1980s when People Magazine chose its blueberry flavor as the "Best Ice Cream in America."
I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the Industrial Age and out of step with the needs of our emerging "knowledge society." Second, educators were a major part of the problem: They resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! Total Quality Management! Continuous improvement!
A school is not an ice cream company: It can't send back its inferior blueberries.
In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced—equal parts ignorance and arrogance.
As soon as I finished, a woman's hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.
She began quietly, "We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream."
I smugly replied, "Best ice cream in America, ma'am."
"How nice," she said. "Is it rich and smooth?"
"Sixteen percent butterfat," I crowed.
"Premium ingredients?" she inquired.
"Super-premium! Nothing but triple-A." I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.
"Mr. Vollmer," she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, "when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?"
In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap. I was dead meat, but I wasn't going to lie.
"I send them back."
"That's right!" she barked, "and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all. Every one. And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it's not a business. It's school."
In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!"
Schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.
And so began my long transformation.
Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night.
None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a postindustrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.
Jamie Robert Vollmer, a former business executive and attorney, is now a keynote presenter and consultant who works to increase community support for public schools. He lives in Fairfield, Iowa, and can be reached by e-mail at jamie@jamievollmer.com.
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