The power of universities to influence public policy and debate should be part of the mission of institutions of higher education. Yet, as Milton Greenberg points out in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “higher education tends to take a utopian “let us reason together” view of conflict, often refusing, or unable, to engage more-pragmatic power players.”

In tomorrow’s election, Atlanta will choose new members to the Board of Education, a very significant time in the life of the APS.  On the heels of the Atlanta cheating scandal, and the selection of new school superintendent next year, the election will determine the direction of the school district for the next four years, and more.

In Atlanta there are many universities including Georgia State University, Georgia Tech, Emory University, Clark-Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spellman College.  There is an indelible connection among this matrix of public schools and universities.  Yet, as Greenberg suggests, universities tend to stay neutral when it comes to politics and policy decisions, yet they depend upon state and federal agencies for funding and financial support.

The Atlanta Public Schools have been inundated by charter school management companies, Teach for America and The New Teacher Project (TNTP), not to mention large publishing and online companies that often are in collusion to develop materials just in time for the roll out of the Common Core State Standards, or online and paper and pencil high- stakes assessments. Furthermore, the Race to the Top grant that was awarded to the Georgia Department of Education is influencing the nature of the APS curriculum, the assessment strategies used in the APS, and the hiring of new teachers.  For example, the RT3 grant for Georgia includes nearly $16 million for Teach for America to place teachers in Atlanta and other Georgia Districts, and nearly $12 million for The New Teacher Project to do the same.

Each of the universities in Atlanta has a vested interest in the preparation of teachers for the APS, as well as for districts the larger metro-Atlanta area.  Teacher education that recruits students to make a commitment to teaching, especially if they are from this part of the country, is a far more sustainable approach to providing the teachers needed for our schools.

However, according to the RT3 project, the model for providing new teachers in the metro-Atlanta area is to hire TFA and TNTP recruits who have only five weeks of “training,” no experience teaching, and are uncertified to teach.  Over the next four years the plan is to hire nearly 1,400 uncertified teachers from TFA and TNTP.

Do universities have any concerns with this?  Why does Georgia State University endorse the Teach for America plan that will infuse Atlanta’s schools with inexperienced teachers?  Yes, the teachers are enrolled in a graduate degree program at GSU, but the fact is they are still inexperienced, and uncertified.

Would we endorse the same “training” program by placing inexperienced, and uncertified of physician assistants or physicians in Atlanta’s hospitals and health clinics?  That is, would we be willing to have our children’s health needs taken care of my inexperienced and unlicensed physicians?  Do we do this in the legal profession?  We know that the answer to these questions is no.

Why do we think it is okay to entrust the children of Atlanta (and other schools in the metro-Atlanta area) to unlicensed teachers?

Milton Greenberg suggests that the academy needs to claim its political power.  As we have documented on this blog, higher education is being dragged over the coals by state legislatures around the country just as surely as they are inflicting harm to K-12 education.  Greenberg cites criticism of higher education’s position (no position) during the Federal government shutdown.  He says this about the shutdown:

During the shutdown, Patricia A. McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, rightly objected to the higher-education associations’ not-taking-sides posture when the damage to institutions, students, and families was manifest. She called on higher education to provide a “moral voice” in support of ending the crisis. Indeed, academe is obligated to call on government leaders to protect its interests.

As Greenberg says, higher education has loosened its grip on core values, such as tenure, shared governance, and institutional independence.  He rightly suggests that, although universities can not give directly to political campaigns, the extended family of institutions of higher education can certainly voice their ideas, and even resources.  He reminds us of an important principle:

Any notion that education and politics do not or should not mix betrays ignorance of a simple reality of American life. It is beyond time for higher education to rid itself of any notion that its noble purposes speak for themselves.

Time to Act

I’ve spent the last ten years writing on education issues, including teacher education, social activism, K-12 reform, high-stakes testing, charter schools, and creep of privatization of public education.    I’ve examined in detail the Georgia Race to the Top proposal, and I am shocked by the way the economics of $400 million has been contracted out and spent on RT3 projects.  Yes, GATech has received some funds for the science, technology and mathematics, and three other universities were contracted to develop an undergraduate program for mathematics and science teacher preparation.

Why don’t we take stronger stands on curriculum and evaluation, and on research?  Why don’t we question what the Atlanta Public Schools is doing to improve education for students in high needs schools?  Why don’t we question not only the ethics of high stakes testing, but the research efficacy of the use of high-stakes tests to not only test students, but to evaluate teachers and administrators, and schools?  And why aren’t universities speaking out about the movement to use teachers VAM scores as a measure of learning at their own institutions?

We need to use the example of GREATER (Georgia Researchers, Educators, and Advocates for Teacher Education Reform), a group of Georgia professors who have used their scholarly work and knowledge to challenge the teacher and leader evaluation system that the Georgia Department of Education has developed and will use to evaluate the State’s teachers.

Entering the political arena might not be what we signed up for when we were hired by a Georgia institution of higher education, but it should be.

We can look to GREATER as an example of how to begin.

Atlanta School Board Election

And another place to apply our knowledge and understanding of education is look at the candidates for election in tomorrow’s election for school board in Atlanta. One of the candidates brings a new way of thinking to the school board which is based on the moral compass that Milton Greenberg speaks about.  We at the university can look to Mr. Ed Johnson as a leader who questions the privatization of public education.  His views are derived from being a citizen of Atlanta for many years, and from his work as an advocate for public education in Atlanta.  He realizes that public education needs to undergo a paradigm shift from the reductionist view that permeates schooling today, to one that is systemic and sustainable.

He will bring a different kind of thinking to the APS.  He is a student of Deming  and understands how systems work, and don’t work.

Creative Loafing recent posted this statement of support for Ed Johnson

While I do not know the other candidates for Atlanta Schools’ District 9, I do know Ed Johnson, who is much more than a business consultant, in that he understands the SYSTEMIC reasons that the Atlanta schools are failing, and he is vocal, intelligent, and able to bring a new voice to the moribund discussions of “more resources,” a “visionary superintendent” and other hackneyed ideas about school improvement.

“I would venture to say that ONLY Ed Johnson has the big picture of the vast systemic changes that need to be created to make this failing school system viable again. Simply understanding what “systems thinking” is and how it applies to organizational change puts Johnson head and shoulders above ANY of the other candidates.

“Here is an outlook we share, one that gets to the REAL issues of the enormous paradigm shift that is required for our public schools to become effective for every child, every teacher, and every parent:http://www.explodingtheparadigm.com/2011/06/whats-deming-got-to-do-with-it.html

“Please take another look at the real qualifications of the District 9 candidates!”

Johnson explains that a system (such as a community) is more than a sum of its parts.  He says that if we get the parts (of a school & its community) working together, it will result in much more than the sum of the parts.  Narrow thinking will lead to the closing of schools because the central office looks only at short-term savings of money, where the kind of deep thinking that Johnson is advocating might create an environment for school improvement, rather than closure.

And one more thing.  Mr. Johnson tasks the school board with telling us what they think is the purpose of schooling in Atlanta.  As he points out, asking nine school board members this question several years ago resulted in nine different answers. As Johnson says, if they can’t agree on the purpose of schools, how can they function to improve the district.  Why do have public schools?  What is the purpose of school?  If we can not answer such basic questions, how can we possibly make serious decisions about people’s lives such as shutting down their children’s schools.  And indeed Mr. Johnson’s ideas about purpose of schooling are in sync with Edward Deming’s ideas when he says:

People are asking for better schools, with no clear idea how to improve education, nor even how to define improvement of education (Deming 1994).

If you are able to vote on November 5th, I hope you will consider Mr. Ed Johnson.