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Chapter 7 Reflections for Jigsaw Group 10_16 (1)

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Two things I learned:

Enslaved people established schools to promote literacy in order to promote freedom, power, and pride.  This practice continued into reconstruction, aided in part by both black and white teachers from the north.

Grouping of students by ability level was prohibited by a principal in a black, segregated elementary school in the Jim Crow South, helping students become empowered and navigate this racist environment.

Two questions I have:

How can white teachers have a positive impact on their black students in navigating systems that are weighed down by white supremacy?

-high expectations (DuBois)

Should white administrators encourage supportive systems for students of color outside of the school day?

What are the best ways to recruit black teachers to schools in predominantly white communities?

Another resource:

Smith, H. J., & Lander, V. (2012). Collusion or collision: effects of teacher ethnicity in the teaching of critical whiteness. Race, Ethnicity & Education, 15(3), 331–351. https://doi-org.wv-o-ursus-proxy01.ursus.maine.edu/10.1080/13613324.2011.585340

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I learned that the Common School Era began in the North Eastern US in part because there were pre-federal mandates coming from the leadership of colonial northeastern Protestant hierarchies. These mandates required cities of larger sizes to formalize education and allow access to it. Horace Mann was a Massachusetts legislature who was also highly instrumental in seeing this through.

I learned that during the Progressive Era was when "...the social sciences crystalized as disciplines..." During this time education was reacting to the US moving from agrarian to industrial, from rural to urban living, population growth and increases in cultural and linguistic diversity. The Progressive Era focused on using scientific progress to meet social ends.

I question why I hear little to no talk in education of the importance of ensuring that our students graduate high school being fluent in at least one other language as a part of preparation necessary to live and compete in a global context.

The article reports that any impetus for changing/ improving the educational system is disparate at best. I wonder if we are verging on the need to move out of the accountability and heavy testing era which we know is fraught with challenges particularly for our students of color and students coming from marginalized communities and/ or student special needs. I wonder about restructuring how we look at success in educational attainment, how we can look to impose more focus on global studies, indigenous studies, interconnectedness and benefit as well as philanthropic learning, consistent community service and civic engagement.

The resource I would recommend relates to the Duncan video. The National Association of Black Social Workers was founded after Black Social Workers attended a National Conference of the National Association of Social Workers and asked to be heard. The black members were shunned and silenced. They formed an incredibly strong association that reflects what Kristen Duncan reviewed; that black social workers will train black social workers to liberate the black family and black community, to celebrate ubuntu, to focus on collectivism and to conquer racism and white supremacy in all its forms.
https://www.nabsw.org/?page=About_Us

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Shane's Notes on The Education System of the United States of America

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Shane's Notes on The Education System of the United States of America

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The Education System of the United States of America

Learned

1.      The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) passed in 1965 provided federal funding as a way to enforce federal policy around desegregation and discrimination.

2.      The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 was responsible for providing funding to encourage education in the areas of trade, industry, and agriculture. This created a system that nationally recognized the importance of specific educational goals.

Questions

1.      What impact does the lack of credentialing for post-secondary educators have on the quality and efficacy of education at this level?

2.      Legislation has had a great impact on curriculum at the K-12 level and at the regulation of processes and services at the post-secondary level. What, if any, policy approaches  could be able to have an impact of the post-secondary cirrculum?

What is an additional resource, written, Podcast, or video that would help to further explain or illustrate a key concept in this reading/video?

1.      For more about the establishment of the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 and what it did to impact American education:

1917-Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 from the FFA:

https://www.ffa.org/about/what-is-ffa/ffa-history/1917-smith-hughes-act/

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Shane's Note on Systems Thinking (Ch. 1)

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Shane's Note on Systems Thinking (Ch. 1)

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Systems Thinking
Learned

1.      Systems are very dependent on the flow of information. Information determines how systems operate and are signals for action and decision points in a system on how to act.

2.      Stocks are the tangible parts of a system. Stocks also contain “the memory of the history of changing flows within the system”.

Question

1.      How can we use the idea of stock being the memory of the history of in and outflows of the system in our hiring and retention practices? How can we use the information from our current employees to teach us about why they chose to work for us (inflow) and why they choose to leave or not leave (outflow)?

2.      The chapter ends with the idea that instead of looking at who’s to blame for issues but instead “what’s the system?” and how does the feedback within the system cause its own behavior. I’m curious about how our education system does this? What kind of feedback do we get to improve the system and not just focus on the stock (students, buildings, technology)?

What is an additional resource, written, Podcast, or video that would help to further explain or illustrate a key concept in this reading/video?

1.      A Better Way to Develop and Retain Top Talent

https://hbr.org/2020/01/a-better-way-to-develop-and-retain-top-talent

This article describes how to develop and keep top performers in their companies. Two of the 5 pieces of advice are about using feedback loops to improve the experience of these employees, one about the flow of information, or feedback, from employee to employer about what they desire to remain and what they need to grow, and another about the feedback from employer to employee about their work. These are the kinds of feedback loops that the book describes that can vastly improve the workplace system.

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It Takes a Village: Black Teachers Helping Black Students Navigate White Supremacy

by Kristen Duncan

Learned

1.      The Afrocentric curriculum was developed and taught in segregated Black schools during the Jim Crowe era.

2.      Desegregation forced many Black teachers and principals from education careers. Currently on 7% of teachers are now Black.

Questions

1.      What was the impact of the competition narrative by Black teachers to Black students that they needed to be better than their White peers in school and life to break down racial power structures?

2.      Was the desegregation of Black schools a trigger for the Black Power movement and their focus on Afrocentricity and self-empowerment because of the loss of Black schools and the race-conscious education they received there?

What is an additional resource, written, Podcast, or video that would help to further explain or illustrate a key concept in this reading/video?

1.      On Afrocentric History in American Education by Jon Hale: http://www.processhistory.org/afrocentric-education/

This article describes the history of afro-centric education efforts in the US, I found this helpful to better understand how and why Black teachers employed this information in their classrooms.

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Shane's Note on Education Research and the Shifting Landscape of the American School District

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Shane's Note on Education Research and the Shifting Landscape of the American School District

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Education Research and the Shifting Landscape of the American School District
Learned

1.       Local school district control as a rational against desegregation and district consolidation after Brown vs. Board of Education.

2.       Studies show that central office staff in districts are somewhat likely to use evidence to make school improvements but often used evidence to to gather political support on an issue.

Questions

1.       Why aren’t district central office staff more driven by evidence-based practice? Is it because of the highly politicized role of the superintendent?

2.       Why is district consolidation so popular when other ways of organizing education (like schools and classrooms) are trending towards smaller such as decreasing class sizes and the preference for neighborhood schools?

Resource:

How Small Is Too Small? An Analysis of School District Consolidation-The Californila Legislative Analyst’s Office Report 5.2.2011

https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2011/edu/district_consolidation/district_consolidation_050211.aspx

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Dan L - Video- It Takes a Village Black Teachers Helping Black Students Navigate White Supremacy

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Dan L Notes - Review of Research in Education

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Dan L Notes - Review of Research in Education

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Learnings:

Black teachers had great freedom to teach from an afrocentric perspective and using critical pedagogy towards liberation before desegregation.

Unfortunately, subsequent desegregation had a negative impact on Black student experience and learning.

Questions:

What would the counter argument be for desegregation being a positive force? Would it be purely economic and would that be worth it?

What would it look like now to have schools for Black children created and run by all Black staff? How would that fit into our current system?

Resources:

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1204557, Cultivating Sacred Spaces: A Racial Affinity Group Approach to Support Critical Educators of Color, Pour-Khorshid, Farima (Available for free through USM library) Teaching Education, v29 n4 p318-329 2018

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Learnings:

This article shines light on the high tension between federal and state level influences, which feels absolutely compatible with the reality of the tension between federal and state influences in other areas of U.S. policy and that is evidenced in our systems of government with its diverse power centers.

The clarity of progression from common schools to the era of accountability was new to me and it fit neatly with what we read in Putnam. Seeing the progressive upswing reaching a brief civil rights era followed by the reaction which focused on “accountability” and “excellence” on the downswing is clearly congruent with Putnam’s main points.

Questions:

Is the “restlessness” the author refers to a good thing? Are the tensions they describe evidence of the multiple power centers that keep U.S. education from being taken over by factions each time there is a presidential election? Or does this lack of coherence create an obstacle to real progress on excellence and equity?

It has been 100 years since a somewhat comprehensive evaluation, and the world has changed immensely. Is it time to form another Committee of Ten or some other more democratic approach to examine the current needs and initiate a restructuring of Prek-12?

Resources:

“The National Education Library serves as the federal government's primary education information resource to the public, education community, and other government agencies.” This resource makes me think of Lippman’s argument that we should have intelligence gathering agencies for each department of government. This looks pretty close and would be a good place to find historic data provided by schools if one wanted to look further into the information provided. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/projects/nle/

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Learnings:

School districts are caught right in the middle of federal to state to schools to teachers pipeline of information and policy changes. It is interesting too to think of school board members as being uniquely unqualified as professionals in this scheme. Superintendents are professionals but they work for the elected school board, many of whom are not educators. However, perhaps their potential lack of professional experience in education, which could mean they bring a wide array of expertise in other areas of life, could broaden the frame within which policy ideas flow to districts and then into schools.

It seems that when compared with approaches by districts in past eras, our districts tend not to see themselves as the locus of innovation, or maybe I should say there is great disparity between approaches of districts to innovation. This leads me to wonder how the state can leverage its power not to solve the problems but to incentivize innovation by districts. I am aware that there are programs doing just this right now, but I didn’t understand them in this way until reading this article.

Questions:

How did the Prussian system impact our education system? I’ve read and heard so many different things. I’d like to understand this better. What was the timeline of change between say 1848 and 1880? This is a gap in the research shared.

How does the district level leader’s reliance on their personal worldview to understand problems and find solutions, followed by staff then finding evidence to support that view and the solution, relate to Kendi’s assertion that racism is the outcome of self-interest-based policies that then have “evidence” created (racist ideas)?

Resources: https://www.msmaweb.com/o/msba/page/about-msba. There is a lot to know about the Maine School Board Association and its influence in education. You can read more about their role from their perspective on their website.

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Learnings:

I learned a few of the basics about what systems are and how they work. Systems comprise elements, interconnections, and purposes. Stocks are elements, which change value/size over time depending on inflow and outflow, with feedback loops influencing the stock by acting on inflow or outflow levels.

I was reminded that systems can have multiple functions and that self perpetuation is usually one of them. This leads me to understand why a change in the elements of a system (people/actors) doesn’t necessarily make a change in the quality or type of  interconnections, or change the purpose.

Questions:

I’m curious to see a systems map for school and/or education in Maine, taking into consideration the federal and national, if not also the international, influences. I’m not sure how I would differentiate between schooling and education in this example, but I assume a systems map of education would be much more complicated with many, many more inflows and outflows as well as stocks and feedback loops.

Does this author differentiate substantially between mechanical systems and systems that involve human beings? If so, how does she describe the differences?

What is an additional resource, written, Podcast, or video that would help to further explain or illustrate a key concept in this reading / video.

Otto Scharmer on systems thinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnI3-q-x7Hs.

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I found the research opportunities identified in the conclusion to be worth consideration, especially the idea of innovation and how to harness the power of educators in school reform efforts.

1.     optimal size range for school

2.     ask where new ideas come from and how to help foster the spirit of innovation that is so critical to productive institutional growth.

3.     what precisely is it about districts that has allowed them to persist for so long?

4.     what role might teachers continue to play in ongoing district reform?

5.     how might states reconsider the optimal role they can play in developing policies that will foster productive district improvement?

As education researchers, we need to reenvision how the changing nature of the school district might best be harnessed in the service of improving student learning in the future.

I also appreciated the section identifying how school administration make sense of policy and how this impacts the messages available to teachers, not to mention the execution of the policy.

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Fossum "Education System in the USA"- Notes 10.15.21 

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Gamson:Hodge "Ed Research & Shifting Landscape"- Notes 10.15.21 

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VIDEO:  Dr. Kristen Duncan - It Takes a Village: Black Teachers Helping Black Students Navigate White Supremacy by Kristen Duncan

Quotations re: Something Learned:

9.  “In the years following Brown Vs. Board of EDU - Desegregation, 1955 - 1964 etc. Blk teachers lost their jobs in big ways, at high rates, as did BLK administrators.”  While this makes complete sense I had never been exposed to or learned this particular aspect of desegregation.

10. “Even today only 7% of public school teachers are BLK according to the Nat. Ctr. for Edu.” cited by Dr. Duncan.  I am a bit ashamed to say that I have never given this much consideration, mostly because of my own geography.  I am saddened and humbled to think that states with more diversity do not have more People of Color in teaching professions.

Emerging Questions:

11.  “Black teachers construct(ed) counter-narratives to counteract racism, disparaging messages,” etc. How does one balance (as a teacher) having the highest expectations (so as not to lower the bar for capable individuals), while simultaneously remaining highly flexible (recognizing the firm deadlines, for example, maybe more difficult for marginalized populations - so the focus becomes on the learning, not the specific deadline/soldiering aspect of classroom performance)?  Where does flexibility cross the invisible line to fostering poor work habits (lack of readiness for real-world/career applications)?  What policy changes are effective in this scenario?

12.  “For the contemporary educational landscape, [Dr. Duncan suggests] it is important to help Black students (& all learners) to develop a critical lens - so students learn to see oppressive structures for what they are and are less prone to internalizing/individualizing messages that are otherwise pervasive and too often invisible, for what they really are.”  Our federal government, under the last Presidential administration, passed legislation that bans the teaching of accurate Black history, for example, and other aspects of Critical Race Theory.  How are educators today balancing the lessons so that students begin to see and identify systemic and structural racism (to avoid internalizing/individualizing) with these federal mandates that threaten to remove federal funding to violators?

The image below depicts the creation of private spaces, where accurate Black history is taught to individuals and a small group of Black students...  Dr. Duncan's example of being a shield, engaging in real talk, creating a space, focusing on what can be done:

This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ASC_Leiden_-_Rietveld_Collection_-_East_Africa_1975_-_05_-_027_-_A_village_school._A_black_female_teach

File

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Review of Systems (Learning) Quotes:

1. Keeping sub-purposes and overall system purposes in harmony is an essential function of successful (dynamic and alive) systems (p. 22) Meadows, D. Ch.1.  This seems to be crux of solving wicked problems.  When the sub-purposes get out of line with the overall system purposes, Meadows suggests the death of the system.  It seems to me that this parallels what is happening in our country politically right now.  The sub-purposes of political parties, religious interest groups etc. have become the priority more than preserving our democratic functioning.  The result appears to be a slow death of our democracy.  I think EDU 701 and PPM 715 purposes are looping in my brain at this hour - since they have the same ultimate end-game, I hope that means my brain will continue to somewhat function - despite fatigue haha!

2. Stocks act as delays or buffers or shock absorbers in systems (p. 28) Meadows, D. How do public universities that are serving disadvantaged populations, in an under-sourced way, possibly develop any/enough stock to act as reasonable buffers for all that comes at vulnerable groups and individuals?

Two questions from Systems reading - Quotes:

1. The function of a system is to bring the discrepancy between what is and what is desired to zero, no matter what direction the discrepancy is (p. 33).  What is the role of higher education settings in the balancing feedback loops that regulate retention for marginalized populations entering 4-year programs?  Or what additional opportunities should 4-year institutions be providing to support retention for marginalized populations when they enter into 4-year institutions - knowing they arrive disadvantaged and experience a constant barrage to their systems?

2. The second kind of feedback loop is amplifying or reinforcing, self-multiplying, or snow-balling - a vicious or virtuous cycle that can cause growth or runaway destruction (p. 35).  What is a Chancellor of a public university system to do when an element within the system is failing to adequately function, resulting in death (small “d”)?  The necessary actions required to adequately balance the system are not attainable due to resource constraints.  At what point, does a Chancellor or Governor call it quits? necessary actions required to adequately balance the system are not attainable due to resource constraints.  At what point, does a Chancellor or Governor call it quits?  What decision-making models are effective in deciding to close or merge?

An additional resource :
Rómulo Pinheiro, Lars Geschwind & Timo Aarrevaara (2016) Mergers in higher education, European Journal of Higher Education, 6:1, 2-6, DOI: 10.1080/21568235.2015.1099455
Speaks of factors influencing merger decisions

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Terri's Notes: American School Districts

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Terri's Notes: American School Districts

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Quotations re: Something Learned:

1. “We recognize at the outset that what precisely defines a school district varies significantly depending on perspective. The term district can refer to a school board, a collection of schools, a geographic demarcation, a legal entity, a bargaining unit, a central office, a set of enrollment boundaries—the list goes on. There are many versions and visions of school districts (p. 217).”

2. “The first is the belief that district governance and local control serve as an embodiment of educational democracy" (p. 219).  The authors present this as a dominant narrative.  I agree that this narrative or idea prevails.  I never took the time to reflect on or even tried to understand some of my own frustration with school board functioning at certain points, until I read this statement in the article. The authors go on to explain the dominant narrative and provide additional clarifying context that serves in summarizing;

The quintessentially democratic educational institution (the school board) can be employed to achieve distinctly undemocratic ends. “  These undemocratic ends are what I have observed all too often.

Quotations on questions:

1. “We approach this by asking the following questions: First, how has the idea, or definition, of what a school district is changed over time, and why have discussions of districts periodically resulted in controversy? Second, what has it meant to be a good or effective district through history, and how has district quality been assessed, measured, or determined? And, finally, as the district has developed over time, how have researchers and practitioners articulated what they see as its appropriate role?” (p. 218).  How are we measuring the quality of a school board today?  How do we encourage citizens to evaluate the effectiveness of a district with some consistency?  How can the functioning be evaluated if there is not a standardized definition of what a school board 'is' or what it specifically does or how it is supposed to do the function?

2. “We must attempt to better understand the connections between the school district and instructional improvement, a relationship that many researchers now believe should be the core consideration of school reform efforts” (p. 219).  What have we been using as the core consideration(s) of school reform efforts?  Standardized test scores? And there are many looping aspects that intersect and form a complex web of intersectionality that is not easy to navigate or evaluate.  As the article points out... there are federal, state, local influences.

“Incipient Bureaucracy was the model that ultimately triumphed. Democratic localists were the chief hindrance to its rapid adoption, but the localists stumbled over too many obstacles, especially in cities, where small ward districts often led to unnecessary duplications and were thus depicted as inefficient. Moreover, establishing small wards often created visible inequalities across wards in the same geographic area. As state superintendent of the common schools in Connecticut, Henry Barnard argued in 1865 that an “immediate union of all the districts” represented the “first great step” in urban school reform. The hallmarks of incipient bureaucracy were centralization, supervision, and professionalization. City schools also served the purpose of protecting poor children from poverty, vice, and “the temptations of the streets.” Critics of school districts today often incorrectly believe that incipient educational bureaucracies were directly modeled on 19th-century factories or on an imported, rigid Prussian system. Neither conception is accurate, for at least two reasons.”
ADDITIONAL RESOURCE/VIDEO:
There is a Maine School Board Association. I am not sure how active this organization is or how accessible live people/consultants actually are (perhaps very!) ? I am not as familiar

with this group but it seems like this could be useful to reference in light of the article and the pervasive questions.

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Two Aspects of Learning:
1.  The timeline of the 4 main reform phases of education.  I did not realize these distinct phases of educational reform.
2.  Less than 10% of K-12 public funding comes from federal sources.
Questions:
1. If less than 10% of funding for K-12 comes from federal sources, does this mean losing the federal funding (due to the recent ban on teaching critical race theory legislation) really might not be the devastating blow that it initially seemed to be? (10% of the budget is significant - of course! I do not mean to minimize this...just pausing to reflect that perhaps this legislation, if left to stand alone in the absence of additional state mandates (which are also being layered on), might not be quite as leveling as I once thought (until those state mandates get added to the top!)
2. The tensions between federal and state influences, are these contributing to the balancing feedback loops that Meadows was speaking about in her Systems descriptions? The complexity of sub-loops within the bigger loops and the intersectionality of all of these moving parts... it seems as though these interactions create the wicked problems that are impossible to solve?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCE:
Spring, J. (2010). The Politics of American Education (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203838990
Suggests a simple explanation for the intersection of local, state, and federal influences in our educational system.

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I valued the conversation in Duncan's video related to WEB DuBois around the need for high expectations for black students & the need for black students to develop a critical lense so that when they experience racism they do not internalize it and do not feel helpless. This was not new information for me but the way Dr. Duncan talked about it was effective, clear & appreciated.

In Fossum's article I learned about the 1983 Report "A Nation At Risk" and how the false narratives contained therein birthed the Accountability Movement we are currently in.

A question I have is whether or not we are ready to make systemic change out of the accountability movement so that we can choose to lessen the achievement gap, stop "teaching to the test" and re-empower educators to teach in ways that increase critical thinking skills, curiosity, inquiry and kinetic and experiential centered education.

Another question I have is whether or not there is pressure on the fed govt to increase fed funds for education. We show our priorities clearly by looking at the figure of 9% of fed funds supporting state budgets.

A resource I would offer is the National Association of Black Social Workers and their incredible work towards liberating the Black Community in America and in the Social Work profession.