The deck is stacked against educators and parents/caregivers looking for educational adequacy in contemporary US education. Too often, satisfactory quality in the good public school is identified based on opinion, the dubious value of standardized test results, and marketing ploys. Moreover, the contemporary purpose of US education and the definition of educational adequacy are wild cards that prevent most from playing a winning hand.
Finding the good public school is left to chance. This book initiates a search to transform this state of affairs. All students deserve a comprehensive public education that invests in the original power of education, dynamic instruction, and principled reasoning.
This discussion tackles the barriers—the eye of the beholder, the tyranny of either/or, and standardized testing—that hobble the capacities of educators and students. Once these barriers are removed, the determinants of comprehensive public education—power, policy, and instruction—emerge.
From these discoveries implications are derived that indicate how comprehensive public educationengages educators and students with a transformed definition of educational adequacy. The good public school depends on this and a complete readjustment of the purpose of US public education. This search enables educators and parents/caregivers to identify and establish the good public school without taking any chances.
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
CHAPTER 1. What’s the Purpose of Public Education?
The Contemporary Purpose of Education
At A Loss to Glimpse the Future
The More US Education Changes, the More It Stays the Same
A Selfie Puts Education’s Purpose and Educational Adequacy to the Test
A Selfie Reveals…
State Authority for Public Education
A Diverse Student Population
High School Graduation
Funding for US Education
Parents and Caregivers
The Impact of Standardized Testing
Contemporary Purpose and Standardized Testing
What Do We Have Here? Implications from the Selfie
A Picture That Demands at Least a Thousand Words
A Future for US Public Education
Beginning to Search with the End in Mind
CHAPTER 2. True North: The Moral Obligation of Public Education
True North and Socialization
Socialization and Moral Obligation in Public Education
Moral Obligation: One Point of View
Moral Obligation: Another Point of View
The Troubled History of Moral Obligation
The Impact of US History
Moral Obligation and the Absence of Critical Habits of Mind
The Capacity for Moral Obligation in Public Education
Leading-Out Principled Reasoning
Fostering Autonomy and Relatedness
Interpretations of Moral Obligation
Two Imperatives of the Moral Obligation of Public Education
Responses to these Imperatives
Students and Self-Mastery and Principled Reasoning
Choices and the Future of Moral Obligation
Moral Obligation and Choices About Student Capacity
Moral Obligation and Choices About Agency in Public Education
Standing in the Way of Moral Obligation
Precepts of the Moral Obligation of US Public Education
CHAPTER 3. The Eye of the Beholder: An Unavoidable Barrier
This Search and Its Barriers
The Perspectives and Publics of Contemporary US Public Education
History and the Eye of the Beholder
Major Perspectives About US Public Education
Free Market Schooling
Choice + Mechanisms = Competition in the Free Market
In the Free Market Only the Individual Knows Best
To Create the Marketplace Only the Self-Anointed Know Best
Traditional Public Schools
Two Publics in US Public Education
The Public
And the public
Barriers Arise Where None Should Exist
Why Do These Barriers Endure?
Taking this Search Beyond the Eye of the Beholder
CHAPTER 4. A Barrier Within: The Tyranny of Either/Or
The Synergy of Struggle
Characteristics of the Tyranny of Either/Or
Adult-Centric Advantage
Ideology Is Destiny
Reform Is Ideology
Education Is Singularity
The TEO Barrier: School-Attached or School-Detached
The Bricks in this Barrier
Dismantling the Tyranny of Either/Or
CHAPTER 5. Confronting the Barrier of Conventional Wisdom
The Authority of Conventional Wisdom
The Baleful State of Educational Adequacy
Educational Adequacy as a Social Construction
Educational Adequacy as Minimum Quality
A Challenge to Educational Adequacy? See You in Court!
Deficiencies and Disparities
How Educational Adequacy Becomes Conventional Wisdom
The Paradox of Educational Adequacy
Educational Adequacy: A Dead End
Can Conventional Wisdom Be More than Minimums?
Reconsidering Educational Adequacy
Conventional Wisdom and Linearity
Mediational Influence
CHAPTER 6. The Measurement Barrier in US Public Education
I-P-O and Measurement: Standardized Testing
Measurement and its Misnomers
Measurement Misnamed: Accountability
Measurement Misnamed: Efficiency
Naming Rights: The Convenience of Efficiency
Measurement Misnamed: Cost Abatement
The Fog of Certainty
Testing Bait and Switch
Just More Numbers in the Wall
Students Lost in the Fog
Measurement and the Illusion Called Gap-Gazing
The Weakness of the Bricks in this Barrier
The Case for Effective Evaluation
Examples of Effective Evaluation
Teaching to Cognitive Expectations
The End of Measurement Inadequacy
CHAPTER 7. Power and Public Education
The Presence of Power in Education
The Rationale for the Future of US Public Education
The Heart of the Good Public School
Power: Abuse and Potential of a Steady State
When Power Is Exclusionary
The Minor Leagues: Purpose, Power, and Education
Why the Original Power of Education Is Vulnerable
Amorality and External Power
The Many Effects When Wires Cross
The “What,” “Who,” and “Why” of Power in Education
The “What” of Power in Public Education
The “Who” of Power in Public Education
The “Why” of Power in Public Education
Power and “I Identify As…” Statements
“I Identify As…” Statements
“I Identify As…” Statements and Stereotype Threat
Avoiding the Absolutes: Power + Corruption
Uncritical Habits of Mind: A Case Example
Subordination within Contemporary Education
Freedom: The Original Power of Education
Power for the Freedom of the Intentional Self
CHAPTER 8.Dynamic Instruction: Act I—Function, Evaluation, Precursors
Setting the Stage for Dynamic Instruction
Learning Styles Are Instructionally Anemic
Stable Instruction Is an Unreliable Presumption
Dynamic Instruction
Educational Function
Educational Adequacy and Educational Function
Educational Function and Instructional Mapping
Effective Evaluation
Instructional Precursors
Act I: Exeunt All
CHAPTER 9.Dynamic Instruction: Act II—Student Engagement
Student Engagement and Satisfactory Quality
The Triumvirate of Student Engagement
Pedagogical Agency
The Expectations of Pedagogical Agency
Authoritative Engagement
Languaging and Student Engagement
The Languaging of a Think-Aloud
The Relationship between Languaging and Memory
Student Engagement and Habits of Mind
A Curtain Call for Act II
The Reviews Are In: Dynamic Instruction
CHAPTER 10.Policy and Idiocy in US Public Education
The Idiocy of Contemporary Educational Policy
The Idiocy of Policy: More Linearity
The Idiocy of Policy: Fantasy
The Idiocy of Policy: Ignorance by Choice
The Wreck of the Good Ship Educational Policy
Policy and the Siren Song of “Reform”
Locally-Sourced Policy
Educational Policy: A Mutable Dialectic
A Snapshot of the Mutable Dialectic for Policy
Removing Idiocy from the Policy Menu
21st Century Educational Policy
Common Ground: Policy for the Good Public School
CHAPTER 11. Recovering the “public” of US Education
The Shared Circumstance of “public” in Education
The Intelligence of Common Ground
Freedom Vis-à-vis Learning
A Sample Lesson: The Social Contract
Common Ground: “public”
Balance and Common Ground
Connection and Common Ground
Agency and Common Ground
CHAPTER 12. Weaving Educational Adequacy and the Good Public School
Transforming Educational Adequacy
Commitments About Comprehensive Public Education
Choices, Weaving, and Philosophy
The Good Public School: Indicators and Objectives
21CPE Indicators
21CPE Objectives
Objective #1: The Good School Is Functionally Public
Objective #2: The Good Public School Is How to Think
Objective #3: The Good Public School Fulfills Moral Obligation
Objective #4: The Good Public School Is Student-Centric
Objective #5: Directing the Power of Comprehensive Public Education
CHAPTER 13. Implications from this Search for Educational Adequacy
The Second Implication
The Third Implication
The Fourth Implication
The Fifth Implication
The Sixth Implication
Learning from the Implications of this Search
Teachable Moments and Legitimacy for 21CPE
CHAPTER 14. Student Futures and Comprehensive Public Education
We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us
Stasis vs. Transformation
The First Tenet: Power
The Second Tenet: True North
The Third Tenet: Principled Reasoning
The Fourth Tenet: Critical Habits of Mind
The Fifth Tenet: Common Ground
The Benchmarks for 21CPE
Promises Empower 21CPE
Freedom in Comprehensive Public Education
Dealing with the “If” of 21CPE
Welcome to the Good Public School
References
Index
About the Author :
Jeff Swensson served in traditional public education as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, assistant superintendent, and superintendent across the Midwest for the past 45 years. He graduated from Amherst College, received his MAT from Northwestern University, and earned his PhD from Indiana University.
Michael Shaffer served in schools in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Iowa as an assistant principal, principal, and assistant superintendent. He graduated from Morehead State University with a BA and MA in elementary education and earned his Education Specialist and Education Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Ball State University.
Review :
In the US, chance is a major factor in finding and choosing a good public school for one's children, as a school's educational adequacy is often determined by test scores, marketing strategies, and public opinion, factors that may not accurately represent whether a school can deliver the best education for students. In Defining the Good School, Swensson and Shaffer, both public school leaders, provide an opportunity for policy makers, professors, school administrators, teachers, and parents/caregivers to engage in a thoughtful dialogue about the purpose of US public education and the notion of educational adequacy. The authors claim that the only way to achieve educational adequacy is to identify and dismantle the barriers that stand in the way of a good public education. They espouse the belief that the responsibility to create the conditions for a “good public school” for every child rests on everyone's shoulders, and can be achieved by identifying the characteristics that would constitute a 21st-century, comprehensive public education (21CPE). This is a must read for anyone seeking to understand the obstacles hindering public education and preventing schools from delivering adequate education to all students in the US. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels.
I was struck by Swensson’s and Shaffer’s “data selfie” regarding American public education as the metaphorical equivalent of the ancient Greek cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope who has been painted with a lantern held in the faces of the citizens of Athens searching for an honest man. Swensson and Shaffer are long time educators, trench workers in the fight for adequate education for all students, something too many have given up on as the impossible dream. They bring us back to first principles and re-establish the case for moral clarity and not market efficiency as the driving force for true educational reform.
“Educational adequacy” is the way that many of our U.S. state constitutions define the government’s obligation to public education. Legal decisions over federal or state financial obligations to public schools use this term repeatedly. But educational adequacy has remained a murky, legalistic, and empty term. The authors of Defining the Good School show us that our responsibility for creating the conditions for a “good public school” for every child is the singular task for achieving educational adequacy. Spelling out both the purposes of, and barriers to the good public school, the authors create a compelling vision for comprehensive public education in the 21st century founded on the powerful construct of critical habits of mind. I recommend this book to school leaders and policy-makers at all levels of governance.
The authors of Unraveling Reform Rhetoric: What Educators Need to Know and Understand have now turned their studied attention to the critical topic of what constitutes an “adequate” K-12 education. Their new work, Defining the Good School: Educational Adequacy Requires More than Minimums, explores the topics of what actually constitutes educational adequacy, what types of societal, legislative, and cultural obstacles currently impede the delivery of an adequate education in America’s public schools, and finally how we, as a society, can overcome those barriers. Swensson and Shaffer have once again correctly identified the cancerous impact of recent privatization efforts and the so-called “choice” movement as one of the greatest obstacles to the delivery of comprehensive public education for all US students. This is a must read.
