Educating for the Bottom Line

None of these changes sound bad. Even the end to busing has support from many liberals and people of color. They've been presented as ways to make sure we're really educating children, making schools safe, increasing funding, and using those funds on effective programs. But they have not always worked out to be the best for the kids.

My daughter goes to Orca, an alternative elementary school in the south end. I admire the staff at Orca. Problems there are the result of new policies, not the staff. Some effects of the new policies have been positive. The school has more control of its funds and over who gets hired. However, some negative changes have taken place.

In-house suspensions increased in the past year. Parents have noticed more tension among the teachers, including more yelling at kids. At a school meeting, reasons given included that there were more kids in the school, and that more of the new kids had behavior problems. Teachers also had to prepare kids for new assessment tests, which left less time for teaching social and probelm-solving skills.

Testing has been a sore point for teachers. New legislation requires that fourth graders take three different assessment tests. It takes time both to take and prepare for the tests. Tests are not interesting learning experiences. The tests don't measure creativity, artistic talent, or people skills, all of which are important subjects at our school.

Although Stanford has called for a curriculum that integrates art, music, and sports, the tests measure only math and language skills. The tests are also used to measure how well schools and teachers are doing their jobs. Tom Bailey, reputedly one of Seattle's best principals, is according to the Seattle Times (5-5-97), "unapologetic about... teaching to the test..." Bailey said, "We have one report card out there in the general public, and that is our test scores."

It is clear that the agenda is strongly supported by Seattle business. This January, corporate leaders offered hundreds of thousands of dollars as a bonus for Stanford when rumors spread that he was considering another job. Stanford calls his principals "CEOs." The new district policies are aimed toward efficiency, productivity, and preparing students for the workforce. Efficiency means cutting out "unproductive" programs and introducing economies of scale (larger schools). Businesses don't need most of their workforce to have artistic talent, appreciation for literature, or critical thinking.

There's nothing wrong with efficiency and practicality or preparing students for the work world. We want our kids to get jobs. But are these policies really serving kids? Do we really want to just prepare kids to be good workers? Shouldn't we prepare them to fight for their rights, since many of them will face racism or other discrimination? The future will require hard decisions about the environment, the economy, and democracy, so shouldn't we prepare them for political participation?

We can't afford to sell our schools to corporations. No one can doubt that businessman Stuart Sloan--who has pledged millions to turn TT Minor Elementary into a "model" school--may have more say about what goes on at the school than all the parents combined. Will the legislature simply start to cut public funding to schools on the assumption that private money will make up the difference?

These are questions that should be addressed, but aren't being discussed now.