A dear friend just retired from a central office position in a traditional suburban school district. He used to buy me beers at happy hour during my first year of teaching in Houston, Texas because I didn’t have money to pay for my own. We watched each other get promoted inside our Houston district, with him focused on elementary schools while I worked most of my career in secondary. We formed a bond of friendship still alive today. He continues to be a dear friend.
I think he reads some of my columns, and I’m guessing he agrees with some of what I write and disagrees with a share of it. I think we’ve both realized how he looks at public education today might be a bit different than the way I view it. So, it wasn’t really a surprise when he challenged me to a debate about the future of public education when we saw each other recently.
I’m actually looking forward to debating him about the future of our public education system. In order to prep for this potential debate, let me share what I think I will argue when it comes to traditional public school district effectiveness and what he will offer as rebuttal.
First, I’ll point out the fact that our public school system has basically become stagnant when it comes to our nation’s report card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. I’ve written about this before, but the fact is that this nation has flat lined reading and math performance over the last 40-50 years. That’s no progress – like zero.
Second, I’ll point out the fact that EdWeek, a leading news source covering public schools, has rated our country’s overall educational performance as a big fat “C.” Too many states are rated D’s and F’s, while very few ever attain an “A” or “A-.”
Third, I’ll mention that we spend more money on public education today than ever before. Yet, school districts continue to cry for more dollars beyond their current budgets. I’ll argue school district priorities outnumber what current budgets can pay for when it comes to public campus needs.
Fourth, I will argue that, because of the three points made above, it is time to create a new learning system. This learning system might include some existing schools, but many schools, especially those that are historically low performing, just need to go away. We’ve spent too many years and too much money trying to fix them. They aren’t going to get fixed, and we need to understand that.
This new learning system would be built on individualized learning plans created by the young learner, their family, and their learning coach. Learning coaches would become the new public learning leader, replacing the traditional teacher, trained in defining, planning, helping to execute, and assessing individualized learning. Young learners, who choose this new system, would pair up with a learning coach based on learning and coaching styles. Two learning coaches, one with literacy expertise and the other with problem-solving skills, could take care of 40-50 young learners.
My good friend has never offered a valid response to why NAEP data has flat lined and the EdWeek report card is just average. To be fair, most traditionalists don’t have a good answer why these two important data points have been so bad over the years. My friend might argue that more kids are taking the NAEP test, so that scores are bound to be lower because more black, brown, and poor kids are now part of the testing group. But an efficient and effective public education system would eventually recover from the strain of additional “tough learners,” a phrase we used when I worked in the Houston public schools. When the traditionalists do offer solutions to troubling data like NAEP and the EdWeek’s annual report card, their ideas usually include hiring better teachers, identifying charismatic principals, improving curriculum, and doubling down on high stakes testing.
Regarding my third point about school funding, I’m guessing my friend might argue that more and more social problems have impacted our public schools. He will argue that to meet these increasing social challenges, schools need more money. That might be right. On the other hand, maybe today’s schools struggle with kids, families, and the problems they bring to their campuses because the system’s unable to meet the new and increasing needs of the American public. If that’s the case, then wouldn’t a new system of learning, one that coordinated well with other social services like housing, workforce development, and other types of assistance, possibly serve these young learners and their families better?
It’s my fourth point that my friend will love to attack, just like all his traditional school friends have done in the past and continue to do today. My friend will say that this new system of learning can’t be scaled up to meet the needs of young learners currently in traditional public schools. I would point out that we already have this type of model inside the traditional American public school system – the elementary classroom. Many of America’s elementary classrooms are staffed with a literacy teacher and a teacher who specializes in math. Why couldn’t the new system be built on this same type of literacy/numeracy foundation, with special learning needs being met by specialized coaches who contract with the two primary learning coaches?
My friend will argue that we won’t be able to find the right folks to fill the learning coach job description. Currently, this might be a winnable point. Traditional schools of education aren’t interested in training a new cadre of learning leaders if that training doesn’t meet the needs of today’s traditional school districts. But my friend will win this point for only a short period of time. Because of today’s higher education institutions refusing to think about the future needs of our nation’s young learners, this might be a space private philanthropy could sponsor the creation of a “learning coach academy.” In the same way private foundations supported charter school startups 20 years ago, they could support training programs designed to produce coaches for cohorts of 40-50 young learners. Eventually, public money could be used to support these academies. It’s important to note we paid a salary of $100,000 to our learning coaches during the Houston Museum pilot discussed in past articles. That salary should grab the attention of our best and brightest classroom teachers interested in becoming an empowered learning leader with decision-making authority over budget and results.
Finally, I think my friend will argue that there is no public money available to pay for this new learning system. So middle class and upper middle-class families will be able to afford access, much like they have been able to start “learning pods” during the first years of the COVID pandemic. Poor families, on the other hand, will be destined for low performing public school campuses. But that’s what people thought when charter schools launched back in the 1990’s. People thought only rich folks would be able to access charters because public money wouldn’t or couldn’t flow to them. This lasted about 10 years until state legislators noticed charter schools outperforming traditional schools in terms of student achievement. Then public money began flowing to charters. It’s logical to think that the same result could happen for this new type of learning system.
What really frustrates me about my friend and others like him is that, instead of acknowledging the failures of our current educational system, they choose to criticize those who want to create a better system. They seem to be married to a failing system and are ready and willing to whip the proverbial horse again and again, even though that horse might be dead.
Let the debate continue!
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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