Saturday
July 19, 2008
by desertjim
The NY Times recently interviewed Randi Weingarten, the probable next president of the American Federation of Teachers, who wants to replace NCLB’s standardized testing with a vision of public schools as community centers.
Ms. Weingarten imagined in the interview. “A federal law that promoted community schools — schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together under one roof all the services and activities they and their families need?” She would like a federal education law, “...that promoted community schools — schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together under one roof all the services and activities they and their families need...Schools that include dental, medical and counseling clinics.”
Public schools historically had a much narrower mission - to create educated citizens. My parents immigrated as children from German occupied Poland before WWI. They were both taught to read and speak English in the Chicago Public Schools. Society saw that as sufficient and it seemed to be; my immigrant father eventually ran his own business. The four children in our family were also educated in the Chicago public schools in the 1940s and 50s. Three of us earned college degrees (two on partial scholarships the third using military benefits) based on our solid public school educations. The public schools of the first half of the 20th century seem to have served us all very well.
Now, at the start of the 21st century, we are looking for ways to reform, upgrade and “make more relevant” our public schools. Perhaps even turn them into the community centers suggested by Randi Weingarten.
In a commentary on his blog Going to the Mat, Matt Johnston questions the effectiveness of such an approach. Johnston points out that ever since the “War on Poverty” we have been asking schools to provide more and more social services to the students. “We ask schools to provide psychological services, counseling, and other non-educational services under the rubric of ‘it will help the student learn.’” I think this all ties in to a June post on this site in which a teacher stated his opinion that he is not a social worker.
Is it realistic to expect such expansion from schools and teacehrs that are already stretched thin just trying to teach reading, math and the other traditonal school subjects? Can (or should) our public schools become all things to all people?
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