In the fervor to reduce the United States deficit solely by spending cuts, Congress and state legislature members are, from a teacher’s point of view, kicking every dime down the drain, come what may.
What will come is a further downturn in education opportunity for public school children. For instance, vouchers take money from public schools to fund private schools-under the morally righteous statement that the legislation, as in Indiana, will provide a chance for low-performing students to improve their achievement by attending a private school. There are many ways to turn around the success of students in urban settings. The most obvious is for legislators to insist on reform in the public school, not buy off desperate parents and students.
Such an argument for good reform rather than reckless spending cuts was offered earlier this week at BostonTech, a school visited by President Obama and Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation.
To reform low-performing schools, the legislation to cut national funding support for educational programs that actually work doesn’t make sense. Caroline Griswold writing a Letter to the Editor in the San Francisco Chronicle of March 5, 2011, noted the most egregious assault: cutting all support to the National Writing Project, a teacher designed and implemented program to improve instruction for the most difficult of all language arts subjects-written composition. All students, whether interested in science, math, English, history, or vocational arts, do better with written language skills.
Elimination of funding “jeopardizes a nationwide network of 70,000 teachers who deliver localized, high-quality professional development to other educators across the country in all states, across subjects and grades,” states NWP executive director Sharon J. Washington. All told, 200 sites established at universities and colleges in fifty states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and international locations provide workshops using a model developed at the University of California at Berkeley in 1973 by high school English teacher extraordinaire, Jim Gray.
In addition, the National Writing Project is accountable for its results. In fact, nine research studies in five states have confirmed significant gains for students whose teachers have participated in NWP programs.
A model designed by teachers to teach teachers that holds itself accountable is the goal that will help improve public and private school education. Legislators should be slapping high fives over its success. Where’s the logic in stripping NWP of funding?
Same goes for Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) that offers books and models for parents to improve literacy for students. National funding is being dumped, in spite of the statistic that nearly two-thirds of low-income families in the U.S. own no books.
Fortunately, RIF is supported by corporations, foundations, community organizations, and thousands of individuals. The only hope for RIF is continued generosity. With dismal education budgets, Congress’ desire to cut NWP funds overwhelms its proven quality. Maybe the Gates Foundation will take up the cause.
Why slash funds from programs that work, all to satisfy citizens who think they are paying too much tax, but want to reduce the deficit? What’s the problem for the one-thousandth of citizens who have most of the money in this country and do not pay anywhere near the tax rate levied on the rest of us?
