COCKEYED OPTIMISTS

They're reviving South Pacific on Broadway--a hopeful sign for those of us who haven’t given up on traditional musical genres. I once took 135 8th graders to a dinner theater production of South Pacific, as part of a curricular unit on 'protest music,' where we studied the unique ability of music to shape or express strong cultural beliefs and values. My goal was to explore the way popular music reveals cultural norms over time. The field trip was a resounding success, although much of the “engagement” among my 8th  grade musicians was around a scene where a back-to-the-audience topless woman was seen behind a scrim. Much more intriguing than social protest. But I digress.

I was thinking about Nellie Forbush and cockeyed optimism today as I read Richard Rothstein’s lead essay in Cato Unbound on the 25^th anniversary of “A Nation at Risk.” Rothstein pulls no punches, leading off with the three reasons that NAR was, and remains, a misguided template for educational reform:

The diagnosis of the National Commission on Excellence in Education was flawed in three respects: First, it wrongly concluded that student achievement was declining. Second, it placed the blame on schools for national economic problems over which schools have relatively little influence. Third, it ignored the responsibility of the nation’s other social and economic institutions for learning.

Well. And Rothstein could not be clearer about the 25-year disconnect between measured school achievement and economic growth in 2008:

It is cynical to tell millions of Americans who work (and who will continue to be needed to work) in low-level administrative jobs and in janitorial, food-service, hospitality, transportation, and retail industries that their wages have stagnated because their educations are inadequate for international competition. The quality of our civic, cultural, community, and family lives demands school improvement, but barriers to unionization are a more important cause of low wages than the quality of workers’ education.

Rothstein has built a reputation around his dogged insistence that while schools can have a large and positive impact on students' intellectual and personal growth, they cannot, single-handedly, fix or even compensate for glaring deficiencies in social structures or gaps in families' social capital. For this, Rothstein and like-minded scholars (not to mention a couple million teachers) have been labeled “excuse-makers”—pessimists, burdened with low expectations and a lack of that ol’ American can-do spirit. In Eduwonkette’s brief blog on the Rothstein/Cato piece, the first commenter notes: “Richard Rothstein. Do we need to read any farther than that? LOL”

Paradoxically, the anti-Rothstein set hasn’t mustered up a great deal of optimism about American schooling, either, although there is no shortage of proposed solutions for what to do about these miserable American schools: charters, disciplinary crackdowns, vouchers, teacher-proof one-size curriculums, raising mandatory attendance age to 18, replacing experienced teachers with bright but under-prepared graduates of prestigious colleges looking to save the world and build a resumé before choosing a grad school—or getting rid of non-essentials like recess and social studies (or field trips to see South Pacific, I suppose).

Who is truly optimistic about American schools these days? I offer an article by my friend and fellow Teacher Leaders Network member Laurie Wasserman. It’s pretty low-key; it might be entitled Laurie and Craig Try Something New and Get Good Results. There are hundreds of thousands of Lauries across the country, however, improving schools through small endeavors, and keeping the faith about education as necessary in a democratic society.

And when are we likely to align and direct resources toward all the economic and social causes of poor educational results? Some Enchanted Evening?

Image Roadsidepictures via Flickr Creativecommons

 

Comments

[jim]

First of all I am impressed that you were able to find a album with Ed Sullivan's picture on it.

Great article, I hope you and Richard keep writing. I enjoy you both.

:)

[Patty]

Wow, Nancy, you did it again! I can sing most all of the "classic" musicals. I can't remember lots of other trivial things. Drama got my high achieving oldest child through a high school that demanded little in the classroom.
According to much research drama and music are two branches of the arts that really do develop the brain. Thanks so much for what you do at school and what you write for the rest of us to think about and reflect upon!

[Heather Wolpert-Gawron]

I loved this article. On another note, I always thought that musicals and theater in general would be a great curriculum integration tool for history. Going even further, I wonder if one could work a master's thesis around the integration of history and the American Musical. Could Ragtime not be studied for both its history or Camelot for its anachronisms? Sigh, what a great way to spend one's own learning...

[Nancy Flanagan]

Thanks, readers.

It almost seems embarrassing these days to admit that I think All Is Not Devastation in our public schools, across the board, that there are lots of people plugging along, improving instruction and learning, one tweak at a time.

That's not to say that there aren't some VERY bad schools--only that most of those schools are filled with kids in very bad social conditions. When did saying that out loud turn us into pessimists or apologists for the system?

I felt that my first two years of graduate work in ed policy were a constant refrain of "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught."