Ted Kolderie is a Particular Irritating Gadfly Buzzing around K-12 Education: Witness This Easy Intellectual Demolition of His “How to Bust Through the Inertia in the Public Schools,” Star Tribune, 30 September 2018

Ted Kolderie is a particular irritating gadfly buzzing around K-12 education.

 

In his “How to Bust Through the Inertia in the Public Schools,” (Star Tribune, 30 September 2018) Kolderie offers ideas for change in K-12 education that were first promulgated by “progressive” educators one hundred years ago and have had decidedly unprogressive consequences for students living at the urban core.  

 

Kolderie says that our candidates for public office owe us some answers for the current maladies of public education.  But he seems to be referring to those running for state and federal office, when in fact candidates who have the most impact on K-12 education are school board candidates.  This November, voters will have two genuine options to exercise.  Jenny Arneson (District #1), Siad Ali (District #3), and Nelson Inz (District #5) are running unopposed;  this is particularly lamentable in the case of Inz, who is a tool of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers(MFT) and the Democrat-Farmer Labor (DFL) party.  The genuine voter options are found among the four candidates for At-Large positions, of whom voters may select two:  Kim Caprini, Sharon El-Amin, Josh Pauly, and Rebecca Gagnon.  Of those, Caprini (despite her MFT endorsement) is the best candidate.  Gagnon must be defeated.  El-Amin is the better option to exercise over the MFT-endorsed Pauly.  

 

Kolderie asserts that we are not getting that discussion or the necessary good thinking, but readers of my blog know differently, since they know that on a daily basis I thrust the most important ideas on K-12 education into the public sphere and conduct numerous conversations with people in all manner of positions at which difference in K-12 education can be made---  most particularly at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS).  These ideas and the results of my thorough research into the inner workings of MPS are pouring into the final draft of my book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Scholls:  Current Conditions, Future Prospect.

 

Kolderie says that we must understand what and where the problems before proceeding tio discussion, but he does not himself understand that the vexing problems in K-12 education are 1) weak curriculum,  2) wretched teacher training,  3) lack of aggressive, highly intentional skill remediation, and  4) failure to reach out to help struggling families right where they live, and the highly intentional concentration of resources needed to address the first four problems.

 

Students should at the K-5 level be acquiring logically sequenced grade-by-grade knowledge and skill sets in mathematics, natural science (biology, chemistry, physics), history, economics, psychology, world and ethnic literature, English usage, and fine arts (visual and musical).  At grades 6-8, this subject area emphasis should continue, with increasing attention to the study of world languages.  At grades 9-12, all students but those facing vexing mental challenges should be academically prepared  to take Advanced Placement courses and to focus on electives meeting their driving interests in the liberal, vocational, and technological arts.

 

Never a graceful or clear writer, Kolderie goes on a long ramble that indicates concern for educational design from the perspective of Tom Veblen and others in the professional universe of consultants and theorists of organization.  But nowhere does Kolderie give any evidence of grasping that weak curriculum and terribly trained teachers constitute the central dilemmas facing K-12 education:

 

Kolderie has no understanding of design for an excellent education, which is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education to students of all demographic descriptors.  Redesign should focus on overhaul of curriculum for knowledge intensity, training of teachers capable of delivering such a curriculum, the delivery of skill remediation with great specificity according to student need, and the delivery of and referral for services for the families of students struggling with dilemmas of poverty and functionality.

 

Kolderie touts legislative changes that brought us Post-Secondary Options (PSO), charter schools, online learning programs, and inter-district choice during 1985-1991, but most students are not prepared to take full advantage of PSO, charter schools were a demonstrably terrible idea, online learning has very limited utility, and choice sends parents scrambling for solutions that typically are not satisfying and neglects the hard work needed to agitate for the changes truly needed.

 

Post-Secondary Options (PSO) provide opportunities for students to attend college and university classes and earn post-secondary training while still in high school;  lamentably, very few students are academically prepared to digest information delivered by college professors:  One-third of students need remedial education once matriculating on college and university campuses, and very few students have the information bases that they need to thrive as they should in the collegiate and university experience.

 

As to charter schools, these have been a disaster, draining resources and attention from the mainline public schools while offering a quality of education that is even worse than that found in locally centralized school districts. 

 

And online learning has not proven effective for a significant percentage of students;   it is not at all appropriate for students with critical academic needs and very challenging life circumstances, who need a great deal of attention from skilled and caring teachers.

 

Neither choice nor chartering have proven effective in providing excellent K-12 education, which must come from programmatic initiatives as I have indicated (curriculum overhaul, teacher training, skill remediation, provision of and referral for needed social services).  Choice and chartering are distractions from the needed focused attention of decision-makers at the level of the locally centralized school district.

 

In fact, most young people stuck in cyclical generational poverty receive their education in the locally centralized school district, where the needed change must occur, in those areas that I have indicated.  

 

In his quest for legislative action, Kolderie assumes that lawmaking can clear the way for change.  But federal and state programs in the United States have only funding and resource equity implications.  The best school systems in the world (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany, Finland, Canada, and Australia) design systems at the national level for the delivery of a consistent excellence of education throughout the nation.  But in the United States we have a mania for local control, so that the needed programmatic overhaul must come at the level of the locally centralized school district.  There already is insufficient federal and state oversight, so that in that atmosphere the way is already open for decision-makers at the level of the locally centralized school district to make the needed changes.

 

Kolderie has no understanding of the needed transformation in K-12 education in the United States:

We need greater commonality of curriculum for an equitable excellence of education;  students should be challenged to move at the greatest possible pace along with their grade level peers and to move as rapidly as possible toward advanced levels of knowledge and skill acquisition.  Projects are an inefficient way to deliver a bevy of knowledge and skill sets, so that impartation by a skilled teacher in lecture and whole-class discussion is far more effective;  and curriculum should be established at the level of the locally centralized school district for delivery to all students at given grade levels.    

 

Nothing about Kolderie’s approach matches his claims to be pro-district, pro-teacher, or pro-student.  His approach gives no attention to the needed change at the district level, gives no consideration to the weakness of teacher education programs or to the needed remedy in teacher retraining, and is distinctly anti-student in denying students of all demographic descriptors a knowledge-intensive, skill replete education.

 

Decision-makers at the level of the locally centralized school district should be focused on curriculum overhaul, teacher training, skill remediation, and counsel to struggling families much more than they should be distracted by the facile reasoning, silly metaphors, and ignorance of the history of education that come to us via the Ted Kolderie collection of errant ideas.