Creating Change: Climate Change

Infoshop has a dense article up on how decentralized energy production could become a method of creating radical change:

"Over the past fifteen years, radical communities have focused their energies on the development of a diverse set of social, political and cultural institutions including bookstores, infoshops, zines, bands, food distribution schemes, broadcasting stations, internet databases, libraries, cafes, squats, video networks, public kitchens, clubs, online message boards, record labels, bars, and more. While this may seem like nothing more than an inflated opinion of your local anarchist coffee-shop, these activities and practices have the potential to create entirely new social arrays, altering the expectations, values and belief systems of individuals by linking counter-hegemonic social conventions with foundational, everyday material practices. Gardens, childcare co-ops, bicycle lanes and farmers’ markets can combine theory with practice in ways that form strong social-material-psychological bonds, bonds that are the bedrock for developing alternative ways of living.

Thus, contemporary radical communities should strengthen what they've made and continue to do what they're good at: building with culture. Rather than developing broad plans and strategies, the best place for radicals to begin creating change is in their own lives and build from there, constantly expanding the scope of projects and educating with the power of material practices. As Feeny hinted at in Workers Solidarity, 'green' education has the potential to be either exclusionary and/or unproductive if it does not connect with the reality of individuals' daily lives. By creating the resources for environmentally sustainable ways of life, radical communities have something to offer. This approach allows for individuals to understand and tackle the large-scale social and economic aspects of environmental problems by framing these issues within the context of daily life." Source

Tying this into a previous article, I think there's a window for creating radical change that involves creative use of local resources, creative application of government resources and community-based values.

Also, a brief reply to Jeremy from the comments. I understand and appreciate your objections, but I have to say -- this isn't theoretical. We applied for and received government funding to create radical change in a public school. This radical change continues in the school, and the 'core group' involved has gone on to start at least two additional schools implementing a radically different education model.

I have a basic understanding of how 'shock and awe' and 'propaganda' can be used to blunt and prevent change, and that this sustaining change once Sauron's eye starts peering down on you is is incredibly difficult. However, the system is not all-powerful -- and as funding gets tighter, that creates a window for creating change in the right direction. Using crisis to create radical change is a tool that can also be used to create change that empowers the community.

I'll have more to say on this subject in a day or two, I'm still shaking out chemical cobwebs from my head. Chemical injury means that you never know what percentage of your brain is going to be working on any given day, and right now that percentage is pretty low :)

A Model for Creating Change

So how does one create change in a large system, when resistance to change is so profound?

I would point to two successful methods in education that have implications for the larger public policy discussion on 'how to fix our broken culture'.

Dropping Out of the System

The first is unschooling, open schooling or free schooling. There's significant overlap between these methods.

Open School: A school where curriculum is generated on an irregular basis, depending on the availability of learning opportunities and the interests of those involved. Marked by a strong appreciation for community resources and immense flexibility.

"Open schools (otherwise known as Informal Schools or Open Classrooms) operate under the central theory that children want to learn and will do so naturally if left to their own initiative. The open classroom is marked by learning areas, often without walls. Students are free to move from area to area, learn at their own pace and enjoy unstructured periods of study." Source

Free School: A school where students are entirely self-motivated, directed by teachers only when the students initiate the conversation.

"An anarchist free school, sometimes spelled free skool, can be a decentralized network in which skills, information, and knowledge are shared without heirarchy or the institutional environment of formal schooling. The open structure of this type of free school is intended to encourage self-reliance, critical consciousness, and personal development." Source

Unschooling: Unschooling tends to define its curricula in opposition to modern schools.

"(R)efers to a range of educational philosophies and practices centering around allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences, including child directed play, game play, household responsibilities, and social interaction, rather than through the confines of a conventional school. Exploration of activities is often led by the children themselves, facilitated by the adults. Unschooling differs from conventional schooling principally in the thesis that standard curricula and conventional grading methods, as well as other features of traditional schooling, are counterproductive to the goal of maximizing the education of each child." Source

These educational philosophies can be employed in small-to-medium sized schools, or through homeschooling. This is one way of creating change -- by dropping out of the system, and ignoring the dominant propaganda model.

The benefit to this method is that change can be immediate, which is very important when the welfare of a child is at stake. Particularly at an early age, modern educational methods can be very hard on a child's emotional and psychological well-being.

The drawback to this method is that it doesn't create change in the larger society; it's relatively invisible. Most people have never heard of the Sudbury Valley School, and tend to regard homeschoolers as kooky religious extremists.

Creating Change Within the System

Another method for creating change is to support alternative schools and charter schools, which exist within the educational bureaucracy.

These alternatives were generally created to serve the needs of at-risk students, but once they proved themselves as effective (and uncontroversial) many charter and alternative schools were allowed to begin recruiting from the general student population.

Alternative School: Defined by some degree of deviation from traditional education. Alternative schools may be very similar to traditional schools, or significantly more student-centered (with students choosing the curriculum).

Charter School: A school defined by charter to meet specific goals. A charter school is its own district/administration, and can be dissolved if it fails to meet its goals.

Not all alternative schools and charter schools are worth supporting, but many are. They may not represent as radical a change as a homeschool employing experiential learning methods (get the child out into the world to experience and learn from it), but many parents and students aren't ready for that kind of a break from the status quo. A school that looks fairly traditional, but employs student-centered education methods is a substantial improvement over the status quo.

In terms of supporting these schools, here's an excerpt from an earlier post:

"The first, and perhaps most important thing is to stop increasing the regulations on our schools. The progressive increase in paperwork, testing, and restrictions on curriculum are stifling innovation. Another important change would be to allow for more experimental schools within the charter school and contract school movement. As these schools are contractually obligated to achieve certain goals or face disillusion, they are already being held to higher standards than most schools are. Allowing for change and experimentation within the auspices of an existing contract is an excellent way to test out the validity of novel educational practices. If these practices are not beneficial to students, they will be closed either due to lack of students or a failure to meet their contractual obligations."

Allowing experimental schools to be exempt from existing regulations as long as their results meet certain benchmarks relevant to genuine student learning would (eventually) create a revolution in education. This was proven to be an effective way of promoting student learning 66 years ago.

Another excerpt:

"All of these changes require some degree of long-term planning. They presuppose a system of smaller schools within a larger system of choice. Within this system, revenues should follow the students, allowing for parental choice in which schools should remain open and fully-funded. These changes also presuppose a tolerance for diversity within the structure. A diversity of educational practices, within a system of choice, would do much more to benefit student learning than any new regulations from the Department of Education."

The other way to support these experimental schools would be to allow for complete student/parent choice in selecting a school. Only a minority of families would make this choice initially. However, as experimental techniques became more commonplace in the community and as the alternative methods of education were shown to be effective, then the number of families making this choice would increase over time.

The disadvantage of this method (change within the existing system) is that it's slow. It would take a decade or two for changes to really begin to manifest themselves within the system.

The advantage to this method, however, is that it has the potential to create large-scale change.

Public Policy Implications

This piece demonstrates an effective way to create change within a broken system.

1. Work to create alternative agencies, bureaucracies and programs within the larger system. It is critical that the method used to evaluate these experimental programs be based on genuine, real-world values like "clean water" and "kids who can read and write coherently". Standard evaluation methods are rigged to support the status quo, and were created to prevent radical change from occurring.

Being held accountable to standards is essential for any government program these days, but these standards must reflect real-world concerns.

2. Change the policy/law to allow community members to voluntarily choose these experimental programs, and that public dollars follow. This will seldom happen all at once; it is better to lobby for exemptions for underserved community groups like single mothers, at-risk students or convicted felons. These underserved communities tend to be invisible, and can provide cover for a nascent experimental program (few school administrators spend a lot of time thinking about the welfare of students who have failed 3 or more classes). However, attempting to allow 'the money to follow the community member' will be fought tooth-and-nail if it is not initially limited to an at-risk group.

3. The propaganda model is challenged by this approach because:

(a) The experimental program is being held to standards. It's difficult to argue against students who read and write 3 grade levels above the norm.

(b) Trying something new on an at-risk group isn't very controversial, and the experimental program can be shut down if it doesn't comport to established standards.

4. Once these experimental programs have proven themselves to be effective, and have created loyalty among one or more communities, then the programs can expand beyond serving at-risk groups and become models for other experimental programs. "You see? It worked over in Rochester, it can work here too!". The longer-term policy goal is to promote the creation of many small, experimental programs that provide an alternative to the status quo -- and eventually defund it.

These new programs don't have to co-opt a significant amount of resources; in fact, it's better that they fly under the radar screen for a few years. Once a critical mass of evidence in support of the program's effectiveness is generated, and enough community members are in support of the program to help lobby for it, then the experimental program can be expanded.

The trick is to find a crack in the door, and to slowly jiggle it open. Every system has vulnerabilities, and every system has communities that it underserves. These underserved communities are weak points in the propaganda model.

These weak points are the place to drive the wedge.

Education: A Resistance to Change

Following up on the research paper I posted, there are a number of interesting observations I can make from the more distant perspective I have now.

One of these observations is that the resistance to change regarding education is profound, and has implications for future efforts to reform our larger culture.

The public's response to educational scare stories like 'omg the Chinese are beating us in math' is to have more memorization of facts, more high-stakes testing, and more carrot-and-stick incentives for teachers and students. This approach is similar to our culture's response to other problems: to keep adding more complexity to the system, figuring that somehow 'more of the same' will fix it.

Crime is high? More cops and more prisons will solve the problem!

Kids are using drugs? Scare them straight, and make the consequences of getting caught really high. That will get them to stop using (illegal, non-Pfizer-approved) drugs!

When people challenge these paradigms, the reaction is to retrench and build the pyramid higher. Sophisticated propaganda models like "our schools are great!" react to outside threats and work to humiliate, marginalize and/or destroy competing propaganda models.

When these propaganda models start to weaken, another model is ready to take its place:

We're running low on cheap oil? Well, let's open up more areas to drilling! And we'd better make sure to station more troops around the oil wells in the middle east. This has worked great since 1950 ... what could go wrong!?

(when this model starts to fail, we get ...)

OK, so there's actually some sort of limit on how much cheap oil is actually in the ground? No problem! Hybrid electric cars will solve everything. We'll just shift seamlessly from oil to electricity.

It's very difficult to create fundamental change in a system that is so adept at repairing holes in the dike. Public propaganda models are very sophisticated these days, are are very well-funded by established interests that profit from their continuation.

The systems are robust, but there are real people involved at level. How about appealing to the actors involved in maintaining the failing systems?

From the previous article:

"Holt argued for a radical change in the way schools were organized, but found that asking teachers to do things that were "so obviously beyond their power" was counterproductive. Instead, he asked teachers to make small changes in the classroom through a process of trial and error -- and to continue practices that proved effective. This effort, too, failed. The teachers he spoke to were too fearful to seek out their own answers, relying on the expertise of professionals above their own personal judgment."

Established systems also have sophisticated methods of filtering its membership. Teachers have to attend (at a minimum) 4 years of college, and 3 years of low status non-tenured teaching. Half of all people who make it through 16 years of schooling to become teachers do not make it through this three year trial period. This is a very effective method of assuring that teachers who would disrupt the status quo don't become professional teachers; and that even the few that get through are moderated by having to conform to peer expectations for at least their first 3 years (prior to receiving tenure).

This type of filtering is very common in bureaucratic organizations, and makes appealing to the regular people involved in a bureaucracy difficult. Not only have they been selected for their ability to conform to organizational expectations, their livelyhood is also dependent on the status quo.

This creates a very powerful paradigm, one that filters incoming information and prevents bureaucrats from seeing many of the worst abuses of their organization.

There is significant resistance to change in a large organization like a school district -- so how does one create change, then?

I'll follow up on this thought later this week.

Alternative Education Research Paper

I did a lot of research into educational methods when I worked at an alternative school from 1999-2001. We prepared for, and then wrote a grant funding transformation of the school towards student-centered learning. I learned a whole lot more from Wayne Jennings and Designs for Learning, as they worked with us the following summer to change the school into a Community Learning Center.

What follows is a graduate school paper of mine gets to many of the reasons why school change initiatives seldom succeed -- and why the broken system is so good at perpetuating itself.

I'll follow up in the coming days with other observations on education; the writing will be less formal :)

Some links relevant to this piece:

The Eight Year Study, the most comprehensive study of educational methods ever done in America. Very few people choose to remember this study because it showed that experimental and nontraditional schools were more effective than standard classrooms.

Subbury Valley School: If a child can't be homeschooled at an early age, this is a pretty good alternative. I would have thrived in an environment like this one.

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Our schools today greatly resemble those of a generation ago. Since its introduction in schoolhouses across America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the dominant model of education has been remarkably static. Reform and revolutionary change have failed to fundamentally alter the way education is delivered in America. Successful reform efforts have been transitory, isolated within a larger structure and difficult to sustain. Despite a lack of research to justify the increasing time and resources being expended on education in order to improve this model, our educational institutions have consistently failed to articulate a clear vision of change in the light of past failed reform efforts.

The dominant model in education is based upon a teacher-centered method of delivery with the following characteristics: age segregation, tight curricular requirements, lectures, textbooks, and tests. The current structure of large schools dominated by non-teaching administrators are essential adjuncts to this model. This model continues to dominate educational thought and practice despite evidence that no amount of additional resources can perfect this method of teaching (Ciotti, 1998), meeting its goal of delivering high education standards to all students.
The evidence is clear that other methods of delivering education are more effective in raising student achievement than this traditional model (Jennings & Nathan, 1977). Alfie Kohn discussed the alternatives this way:

"(T)raditional education sometimes provides students with basic skills but rarely a penetrating understanding of what lies behind those skills, how they’re connected, or how they can be thoughtfully applied. By contrast, a non-traditional education … nearly always enhances understanding and often helps with basic skills to boot (Kohn, 1999, p. 233-234)".

In the Eight Year Study, longitudinal research was conducted in the 1930s with the assistance of high schools and colleges across the country. The results of the study, the most comprehensive in the history of educational research, showed that experimental schools and multidisciplinary curriculum greatly improved the success rates of students (Schugurensky, 1995).

There is ample evidence to show that the less traditional the approach, the greater the level of student achievement will be. The Sudbury Valley School, for example, teaches nothing -- its students are entirely self-directed. Yet, their students are among the most successful in the nation (as measured in reading ability, college entrance scores, and career success) irregardless of their socio-economic background (Greenbery, 1992).

These types of programs, collectively, fall under the "progressive" rubric. They emphasize student-directed, multidisciplinary, project-based, flexible and community-oriented methods of learning over teacher-directed, lecture-oriented classes with rigidly defined curricula .
Evidence for the utility of progressive education is incorporated in many teacher certification programs, where progressive and constructivist concepts are shared with emerging teachers. These concepts, however, are rarely incorporated in the classroom (Wagner, 1994). The clash between the educational philosophy taught in college, and that practiced in most classrooms, is hampered by the inability of most schools to adapt to change. Perhaps because of this clash, by the end of five years between 25-50% of all new teachers will leave the profession (Hare & Heap, 2001).

The rigidity of the dominant, teacher-centered mode of education is pervasive and well-rooted. However, there is very little evidence to support this ever-expanding system of large schools, non-teaching administrators, teacher-directed learning, age division and discrete curricular subjects (Kohn, 1999). There is even less evidence to support the continued "super-sizing" of our educational institutions, as the results produced by them continue to grow more and more disappointing (Nathan & Febey, 2001).

In trying to gauge the effectiveness of our schools, John Taylor Gatto compares quotes from scholars of education across 140 years and writes:

"It is hardly unfair to say that the stupidity of 1867, the fruitlessness of 1880, the dullness of 1895, the cannot be reformed of 1910, the absolutely nothing of 1930, and the nothing of 1960 has been continued into the schools of 2000. We pay four times more in real dollars than we did in 1930 and thus we buy even more of what mass schooling dollars always bought (Gatto, 2000-2001, p. 312)."

By investing more and more resources into a system that has proven incapable of substantial change or progress, our schools fail to meet their goal of educating every child.
Schools are not unique in this lack of progress in meeting their stated goals. Other social services, like welfare agencies and hospitals, have been shown to offer their clients little improvement through the addition of money and resources (Illich, 1976). Indeed, the bureaucracies of these social institutions can become so detrimental to progress that the very abolition of the institution itself becomes the most effective way to accomplish the organization’s principal goals.

Measuring the success or failure of an organization, or their ability to meet stated goals, is very difficult. Most measures of change gauge marginal change, and measure only the most tangible of quantifiable variables. In economic terms, only the marginal benefit of a reform or a new program is usually measured. The opportunity costs to other organizations, or to the community at large, are seldom considered.

John McKnight tackles this issue directly, stating that:

"In the fields of social work, developmental disabilities, physical disability, or care of the elderly, no traditions of routinely analyzing possible negative side effects exists. Instead, evaluation usually focuses on whether an intervention "made a difference." The intervention is presumed to help if it has any effect at all, and if it has no measurable effect, it is assumed not to have hurt (McKnight, 1995, 101)."

The problem, according to McKnight, is that these institutions can pre-empt other possibilities from emerging on their own to tackle the problem at hand. They divert resources, and prevent the natural social order from coalescing around a problem in order to solve it. In short, they can be disruptive to community-building and shared problem-solving.

In education, there are opportunity costs in the use of scarce resources that can benefit other needs. There is the collective weight of program upon program, which may be individually justified but collectively disruptive. There is also the time of the students themselves, who are precluded from other activities (both good and bad) while attending school.

There is some evidence to show that our schools may be iatrogenic. Perhaps most important is the inability of many schools to make education an inviting, intrinsically rewarding activity (Gormly, 1981). Most students given a chance, would not volunteer to attend school if all extrinsic rewards and punishments were removed. Other evidence comes from students who are home-schooled, or from students attending free schools or open schools . Home-schooled children and free-schooled children tend to do just as well as, if not better than their traditionally schooled counterparts. They excel, however, in more intangible measures like self-confidence, creativity and work ethic (Gatto, 2000-2001). Less formal schooling does not seem to hamper student success.

There is also some evidence that schools may be responsible for the magnification of certain learning disabilities through their focus on standardization and averages. William Glasser wrote that:

"Very few children come to school failures, none come labeled failures; it is school and school alone which pins the label of failure on children. Most of them have a success identity, regardless of their homes or environments. In school they expect to achieve recognition and, with the faith of the young, they hope also to gain the love and respect of their teachers and classmates. The shattering of this optimistic outlook is the most serious problem of the elementary schools. (Glasser, 1969, p. 26)"

The argument that our schools may be iatrogenic is unsubstantiated, but worthy of additional research. What the evidence does show, however, is how shaky the argument for traditional education is. Traditional teaching practices are difficult to defend against their abolition; they are almost impossible to defend against the proven utility of progressive teaching practices.
Despite this, traditional teaching and traditionally-organized schools remain the dominant force in education. Though alternatives are more prolific than in previous years, they still constitute only a minority of the schools. The majority of schools have changed little since they replaced the "one-room schoolhouse" over a century ago.

Jolene Morris considered the origins of these larger, more centrally managed schools and their effect on learning:

"In the beginning of schools, we had the one-room schoolhouse. Then came the Industrial Revolution and Frederick Taylor. Frederick Taylor was an industrial engineer who invented scientific management, the assembly line, and the current school system. It's efficient for the teacher; it's not designed for the student ... We lost that freedom we had in the one-room schoolhouse where we individualized the learning with the students. Students lost the ability to take responsibility for their own learning (Morris, 2000)."

These centrally-managed organizations were not created to benefit the students, but to deliver education in an efficient and cost-effective manner (Campbell, 1987). Once created, the need for an administrative structure became dominant (Callahan, 1962). The hierarchy of our schools branched upwards, creating a new class of leaders: superintendents, district office personnel, and professional school board members. The hierarchy also branched downwards, encompassing a new flotilla of services within the school: guidance counselors, nurses, psychologists, probation officers, network technicians, athletic directors, janitors and more. The school became a prolific source of jobs, the district a scientifically-managed entity fulfilling an increasing number of critical bureaucratic functions (Weber, 1922). Lost in this expansion was learning and education, which took up an ever-smaller percentage of a school's budget as each "need" was met by yet another paid professional (Gatto, 2000-2001).

Each of these non-teaching professionals has slightly different priorities, and a different purpose. A guidance counselor may view salability to potential employers as the goal of education, while an art teacher may see aesthetic creativity as the only true mark of an educated citizen. The goals of professionals conflict; the more professionals there are in a school, the larger the potential for conflict.

Adding to this is the inherent conflict between school administrators who are trained to view the ideology of the marketplace as paramount, and teachers who tend to view education as a lofty and ineffable calling. Line-item budgets and true believers seldom mix well.

The public also seems to prefer the stability of schools – or, rather, the lack of suspicious change (Meier, 1995). Schools often serve as a form of subsidized day-care for families. Predictable, timely extracurricular activities keep the community supportive. Successful students also like stability -- change means mastering a new set of strategies to maximize performance. Ironically, many unsuccessful students fear change because the expectations placed on them are so low that they can get by on inertia alone (Sizer, 1985). Our society is very comfortable with the rituals of school. Report cards, algebra class, study hall, summer vacation, detention, Mrs. Johnson's typing class, grammar drills, and test after test after test. It worked for us -- it's got to work for Johnny.

The lack of incentive for change may also be explained by the career track of most professional teachers, and how little incentive exists to adapt to the demands of outside actors. Tenured teachers are professionals in the strictest sense of the words, owing more loyalty to their profession than to the demands of their manager (Wilson, 2000). Thus, their jobs as professionals may be threatened by new techniques and practices through decreasing autonomy (Glanz, 1991).

In education, most incentives favor the status quo. Thus observed John Taylor Gatto, who wrote that, "An insufficient incentive exists to change things much, otherwise things would change." This must be true, for overwhelming evidence has shown that the status quo is in need of substantial remedy for over fifty years now.

In 1950, John Holt observed that:

"Schools should be a place where children learn what they most want to know, instead of what we think they ought to know. The child who wants to know something remembers it and uses it once he has it; the child who learns something to please or appease someone else forgets it when the need for pleasing or the danger of not appeasing is past. This is why children quickly forget all but a small part of what they learn in school. It is of no use or interest to them; they do not want, or expect, or even intend to remember it (Holt, 1950, p. 289)."

Holt reasoned that student behavior was a perfectly rational result of the process of education. He added that, "we adults destroy most of the intellectual and creative capacity of children by the things we do to them or make them do." (Holt, 1950, p. 274). Holt argued that schools, by their insistence that a base core of knowledge was essential to teach to every child, fought against human nature.

He also argued for a radical change in the way schools were organized, but found that asking teachers to do things that were "so obviously beyond their power" was counterproductive (Holt, 1950, p. 277). Instead, he asked teachers to make small changes in the classroom through a process of trial and error -- and to continue practices that proved effective. This effort, too, failed. The teachers he spoke to were too fearful to seek out their own answers, relying on the expertise of professionals above their own personal judgment.

John Holt was not the only person to see this disconnect. Many efforts to reform schools have been made over the years, and almost all of them have failed (Temes, 2001). Perhaps the most celebrated effort at reform has been the Essential School movement, which identified the structural barriers to student learning in the typical American school.

The founder of the Essential Schools group, Ted Sizer, identified several ways in which the bureaucracy of education gets in the way of change: It creates a drive towards monolithic rules and structures that ignore the reality of local conditions, it forces accountability through the use of easily measurable data, it creates a series of norms that do not allow for individual variation in students, it isolates students and teaches through the sheer numbers necessary to sustain specialized licenses, and "stifles initiative at its base" (Sizer, 1985, p. 209).

Despite evidence that our system of education is failing on nearly every level to increase the capabilities of its students and the reality that alternative models exist to replace the current system, nothing is really changing. The majority of schools look very similar to those we had a generation ago.

The primary attempt to reform education in America is a call for accountability through standardization of curriculum and testing, reducing the level of human judgment in the classroom. The goal is to provide more quantitative ways to measure the effectiveness of learning and teaching, creating a standardized, nationalized curriculum in order to set a minimum standard of knowledge for all students (Sykes, 1995). Then, by testing students regularly to see what students have learned, the effectiveness of individual schools and teachers can be measured (Sacks, 1999).

The premise behind this system of accountability is that these test results will ensure quality instruction by providing the public with irrefutable evidence as to the amount of learning taking place in each classroom. According to Deborah Meier, however, this sort of system is too crude to measure genuine learning or ability. She writes that:

"We need standards held by real people who matter in the lives of our young. School, family, and community must forge their own, in dialogue with and in response to the larger world of which they are a part. There will always be tensions; but if the decisive, authoritative voice always comes from anonymous outsiders, then kids cannot learn what it takes to develop their own voice (Meier, 2000)."

Despite our cultural penchant for attaching numbers to things, our drive towards further standardization of the curriculum will not result in positive gains for students (Kohn, 1999). All attempts since the dawn of professional management to standardize learning have failed (Gatto, 2000-2001).

In response to this demand for accountability, our schools have in turn demanded more resources to educate their students. These resources have primarily come through local bond referenda to ensure funding for popular programs and services, and through non-profit foundations and state governments to fund new initiatives. Despite these increased resources, however, education remains static and the benefit to students remains largely marginal (Berliner & Biddle, 1995). Some non-profits have even turned their back on public schools, after being discouraged by the lack of progress in previous years (Temes, 2001).

Substantial change and experimentation is occurring in education, but it is largely a marginal affair: traditional, teacher-centered learning still accounts for the overwhelming majority of schools. There is a minority trend towards smaller schools, teacher managed schools, alternative schools, charter schools and open schools within the country (Nathan & Febey, 2001). These schools demonstrate an immense variety of programs and options for students, but the dominant model still pervades deeply even in this minority of alternatives. Where it does exist, however, progressive education has proven to work (Kohn, 1999).

Progressive education theorist John Dewey taught that students engaged in "moving ideas" take more interest in their studies, learn more fully the import of their lessons, and become better people. Dewey believed that the teacher’s task is to "keep alive the sacred spark of wonder and to fan the flame that already glows. His problem is to protect the spirit of inquiry, to keep it from becoming blasé from over excitement, wooden from routine, fossilized through dogmatic instruction, or dissipated by random exercise upon trivial things." ( Dewey, 1991).

Dewey believed that the practice of learning through doing, the self-discovery of research, and the act of weighing contradictory evidence dispelled the certitude of knowledge and instilled a healthy spirit of introspective moralism in its practitioners. Dewey’s vision of progressive education was that the student, not the teacher, belonged at the core of learning.

These methods of teaching have been proven to work, as "few other educational approaches have documented such a direct, positive effect on student achievement" (Barr & Parrett, 1997). The difficulty, however, is that students "won't all learn the same things." (Quinn, 2000). This variation is difficult to account for in a Taylorized school environment.

Larry Cuban discussed the policy implications of research into progressive education this way:

"Were policymakers deeply interested in pursuing forms of schooling that aimed at cultivating the intellectual, social, and economic powers of individual children while creating democratic communities in schools, they would see that current classroom organization discourages students from learning from one another, limits the growth of independent reasoning and problem solving, restricts opportunities for student decision-making at the classroom and school level, and largely ignores the contributions that the community can make to the students and that students can make to the community (Cuban, 1993, p.278)."

If the results are so obviously biased in one direction, then why the lack of change? Perhaps because learning in itself is not the true mission of our schools -- but learning certain things is. (Glenn, 1988). Defining who learns what is a constant battle, and thus curriculum choices are among the most difficult decisions at most schools.

Besides community expectations over curriculum and course content, perhaps there is another factor at work here: job stability. If students were judged based on competence and graduated based on accomplishment, then what would prevent a self-taught student from "testing out" of a school early? With students flows revenue -- and with revenue flows employment. Changes in the way education is delivered threaten this structure, by placing the responsibility of learning back on the student. This changes the role of education practitioners and experts, who have a vested interest in the current system.

True reform, then, requires something more substantial. Herbert Wagner identified three key elements to successful reform:

"There are three essential, interrelated components to a successful school improvement process: establishing clear academic goals based on developing and assessing students’ competencies rather than on “covering” subjects; creating a caring community with explicit core values; and encouraging many forms of collaboration between teachers and students, parents, and community members. When one or more of these parts is missing, change is thwarted. And when all three are strong, schools can and do transform themselves – though such systemic change is neither quick nor easy (Wagner, 1994, p. 181)."

The difficulty of creating change in a system is echoed by educators who worked on the Community Learning Center model. The CLC design specifications states that “For a fundamental change in education to be lasting and effective, it must be a transformation that pervades all aspects of the organization” (Designs for Learning, 2000, p. 9). The design specifications go on to say that within an existing organization, it is not only change that is difficult – but also sustainability. Sustaining the momentum of change is even more difficult than initiating the original change.

In order to reform our schools and make them more active centers of learning for students, there are primarily two ways to assist in creating the conditions necessary for this change to take place. The first way is to focus on the reform of existing schools, creating an collegial atmosphere of open communication and dialogue, leading to a renewal of shared mission and values (Wagner, 1994). The other is to ripen conditions for the creation of new charter schools and contract schools, where the mission is specified by contract and the collegiality is assisted by the small size of the institution (Designs for Learning, 2000).

Of these two routes towards change, the most likely source of change is through the creation of new contract and charter schools. Although there is a growing recognition that small, site-administered schools are critical to the success of students, efforts aimed at creating smaller schools within an existing larger structure are strongly resisted in many districts. The process of “chopping up” a building to create smaller schools is a fairly disruptive experience, and it requires stronger leadership and more resources than most districts can currently muster up. Creating new charter and contract schools, on the other hand, creates rather immediate change. Charters and contract schools that do not meet their goals are disbanded.

There are many things that can be done to assist in the incorporation of research into progressive education principles into all of these schools, which will also assist in the education of students. The first, and perhaps most important thing is to stop increasing the regulations on our schools. The progressive increase in paperwork, testing, and restrictions on curriculum are stifling innovation (Sizer, 1985). Another important change would be to allow for more experimental schools within the charter school and contract school movement. As these schools are contractually obligated to achieve certain goals or face disillusion, they are already being held to higher standards than most schools are. Allowing for change and experimentation within the auspices of an existing contract is an excellent way to test out the validity of novel educational practices. If these practices are not beneficial to students, they will be closed either due to lack of students or a failure to meet their contractual obligations.

For existing school districts, the transition to smaller schools with local school-based management can be seen as a decades-long process. Just as it took a generation to transition from the one-room schoolhouse to the centrally-managed district, it will take time to change existing districts into smaller, self-autonomous places of learning.

All of these changes require some degree of long-term planning. They presuppose a system of smaller schools within a larger system of choice. Within this system, revenues should follow the students, allowing for parental choice in which schools should remain open and fully-funded. These changes also presuppose a tolerance for diversity within the structure. A diversity of educational practices, within a system of choice, would do much more to benefit student learning than any new regulations from the Department of Education.

Change within the structure of education in America has always been difficult, but it can be accomplished with a serious view towards what has worked and what has not worked in the past. In education, the will to create change has come mainly through crisis; change itself has come only to those institutions willing to enact comprehensive, system-wide reform. For the most part, however, change has come only through the creation of new schools and new institutions. In the case of new schools, and existing schools, the greatest thing that our society can do to assist in the creation of stronger centers of learning is to accept that the future of education will be different than that which they grew up with. The “standard model” of one teacher, thirty students and a podium is going to change -- at least in some schools. With this change will come new measures of accountability, and new methods of teaching. It is only through these types of changes that our schools will begin to meet the expectations that we set for them.

Appendix A

Traditional Education:
Defined by teacher-centered instruction (lectures, tests), age-separated classrooms, professional administrative oversight and strict curricular-based instruction.

Direct Instruction:
A “back to the basics” approach where facts and skills are repeatedly drilled and tested to ensure retention by students.

Alternative School:
Defined by some degree of deviation from traditional education. Alternative schools may be very similar to traditional schools, or significantly more student-centered (with students choosing the curriculum).

Progressive Education:
A philosophy of learning that places more value on higher thinking skills and creativity than on skills and facts. A belief that active, student-centered learning creates more effective educational opportunities for students.

Constructivist Education:
A practice of education whereby students construct knowledge actively, rather than being passive recipients of information.

Open School:
A school where curriculum is generated on an irregular basis, depending on the availability of learning opportunities and the interests of those involved. Marked by a strong appreciation for community resources and immense flexibility.

Free School:
A school where students are entirely self-motivated, directed by teachers only when the students initiate the conversation.

Charter School:
A school defined by charter to meet specific goals. A charter school is its own district/administration, and can be dissolved if it fails to meet its goals.

Home School:
A school based in the home. Privately organized and paid for by individual parents.

References
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Campbell, I. (1987). A History of Thought and Practice in Educational Administration. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

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From the Comments: Health Care Reform, Anarchist Public Policy

Anonymous commented:

"You have some truly great suggestions here. I really enjoyed this. However, the one thing that gave me prickles was the idea of "regulating" toxic chemicals. I agree there should be no toxic chemicals in our environment, but how does one "regulate" this from an anarchist standpoint? "Regulation", unless voluntary, is a governmental function. The State regulates. And the big boys usually find a way to co-opt that process. In fact, it has historically been big business who funded and fueled the "progressive party" regulation movement. One possible direction might be to research and then remove laws which protect companies producing toxic chemicals from liability. Liability suits could then make it more costly for companies to produce, and if an anti-toxicity collective participated in such a suit, they could utilize the damages in part to pay for a big media campaign to educate people about the effects of toxicity. From there, a consumer boycott could be another voluntary, non-State technique to "regulate" these chemicals."

I guess I should preface my reply by stating that I am profoundly toxified and reactive to chemicals. It's something that has affected every aspect of my life and has brought me an indescribable amount of pain. So when I talk about regulating toxins, I speak from a very emotional place. I don't want this shit to happen to anyone else.

I understand your reluctance to regulate things, the government hardly has a good track record on this subject. But chemicals are so ubiquitous and easy to hide, as Lou showed in a recent post. I'm not sure that liability suits and consumer boycotts are sufficient. It's just such a huge and deeply ingrained problem -- I don't see anything other than the force of law changing it quickly enough to prevent another generation of children from being turned into chemistry labs.

Another way of saying this is that corporations are so powerful these days that I can't see individuals being effective enough to contain their abuses. If corporate personhood were ended and 150 years of regulations protecting them from liability were rolled back, then I would agree with you -- individuals should be able to manage their own regulations. But the playing field is not level and I don't see it being leveled anytime soon, short of a complete collapse.

Because of this, as a matter of public policy I have no problem with the government declaring that certain substances are simply too toxic to be allowed on the market -- and that their use is an assault upon the community.

As an anarchist, I believe that all power centers are to be distrusted and made less powerful. But as a practical matter, that's not the world we live in. So as an anarchist, I believe that the second best thing to do is to use one power center (the government) to limit the abuses of another power center (toxic corporations). This is no more contradictory, in my mind, than using a diesel truck to haul building supplies to build a passive solar home in the woods. I believe in using the tools available to us in order to promote a more sane and sustainable world.

I also wanted to add that I really like this idea:

"Liability suits could then make it more costly for companies to produce, and if an anti-toxicity collective participated in such a suit, they could utilize the damages in part to pay for a big media campaign to educate people about the effects of toxicity."

I appreciate the discussion, thank you.

Health Care Reform: A Cynical View of Where We'll End Up :)

Click here for the entire series, this is part 4/4.

I expect the following things to happen in the health care reform debate in America:

1. 20-40 million people will have access to better health insurance at moderate cost to themselves, and another 300 million Americans will be abused less by their insurance companies when they get sick. This is a very good thing. But it's only a very good thing when compared against the (horrible! terrible! omg wtf!) status quo.

2. In exchange for this, everyone in America will be forced to buy insurance policies that support a broken model of health care. Whether they will be forced to buy public insurance or private insurance is consequential, but not as much as Democrats like to believe.

3. The rate of growth in health care costs will be slowed down a bit, but costs will continue to grow well beyond the rate of inflation/deflation. As unscrupulous marketers know, good health (or the illusion thereof) is something people are willing to pay dearly for even in a down economy.

4. Fundamentally, nothing will change. There's far too much money involved in health care, and the American government is far too dependent on corporate dollars to rock the boat very hard. The trends outlined in a previous article will continue.

Health Care Reform: Anarchist Public Policy

From part 2:

"Promoting optimal human health means eating nutrient dense foods, living in a nontoxic environment, being physically and emotionally engaged in the world, and using medicine as a tool to determine what specific elements a patient is lacking (such as a magnesium deficiency, or spending 8 hours a day in a sick building). Taking pills created from petrochemicals, cutting invasively inside the body, and dosing the body with radiation would be a last resort once it was clear the body wasn't capable of healing itself."

I would argue that this is the starting point for human-centered health care. This would vary by region, vary by spiritual path, and vary based on a person's individual biochemistry. Some people thrive on a raw foods diet; others need cooked nutrient dense foods to thrive. This variability is entirely natural, and a human-centered health care system would recognize this.

Once in a while on this blog I dip my toe into what an anarchist public policy might look like. I recognize the difficulty and arrogance of this ... I see it more as playing around with ideas, not as some magisterial pronouncement of How Things Should Be :) Nor do I consider these ideas to be 'canon' with anarchist theory. So please consider this post in that light.

My starting assumption is that destroying 1/8 of the US economy and starting over from scratch isn't in the cards -- but I'm also assuming that systemic change through shifting of priorities would be possible.

With the caveats out of the way, I would consider these changes to be positive and in comportment with basic anarchist beliefs:

* Highly regulate all chemicals used in buildings, food, and industry.

The Obama adminstration has taken baby steps in this direction, but it is simply unconscionable that our lives are filled with toxicity:

“About 40 percent of (human) deaths worldwide are caused by water, air and soil pollution.” Source

10 year old girls should not be drinking BGH enhanced cow milk out of plastic bottles, nor should they be ovulating. Male sperm counts should not be 50% lower than a century ago. Plastic nanoparticles should not be more common than algae in the oceans. Mercury should not be in our lakes. Rivers should not be oily to the touch, nor should they catch on fire. 90% of our topsoil should not be in the rivers and oceans. Food should not be grown from oil. Uranium should not be allowed anywhere on the surface of the Earth.

This is evil.

If we don't change these practices, then our species deserves to be replaced by cockroaches.

* End the oligopoly on accreditation, and allow for alternate ways to demonstrate medical competence. Recognize that a decade of schooling and training in Western medicine isn't the best way to treat every single health problem.

* Allow patients to choose their own doctors and treatment methods, with significantly less interference from regulators or insurance actuaries.

I recognize the harm that could come from this -- it would need to be done very carefully. However, many beneficial treatment methods are also prevented from helping patients. It is far, far more common for the media to report scare stories than they are to report doctors being shut down for employing non-FDA approved methods that have clearly demonstrated an ability to help certain patients. As an anarchist who considers authority to be suspect, I trust in the power of individuals to determine their own path to optimal human health. The critical part is that people need to be able to seek out these alternate treatment paths while they're healthy and able to make informed decisions; it is difficult to make a good decision while you're sick and in pain.

* Significantly reduce the power of corporations, and put an end to for-profit medicine.

Yes, for-profit medicine can create wonderful things like pacemakers and prescription drugs. They might even be better at this than a nonprofit would be (although this point could be argued).

But the opportunity cost is significant. For-profit corporations promote drugs at the expense of vitamins, 'miracle foods' instead of solid nutrition, and are now beginning to patent the very basis of life itself.

* Stop subsidizing large insurance companies and hospitals, shift the money into community-based health care.

Any form of health care involves trade-offs, or (at worst) rationing. These decisions are better made at the local level. Local community organizations should be funded and empowered to decide their own (nondiscriminatory) priorities, and to promote the health of their community in a manner best adapted to their local health needs.

* Aggressively promote community-based agriculture, breaking up large corporate-owned farms and training a generation of unemployed young adults how to raise their own organic food and bring it to market.

* Significantly reduce highway subsidies, shifting funding into bike paths and electric rail. Encourage walkable, livable communities.

* Aggressively promote less toxic, renewable energy development. Significantly reduce the use of polluting fossil fuels.

* Aggressively promote less toxic, highly energy efficient home-building and remodeling.

These are the sorts of policy changes that would promote human health, and reduce the toxic burden we place upon our environment (which eventually comes back to affect human health).

It's important for people to be healthy ... but in the end, humans will only be as healthy as the environment we live in. If we don't address the larger issue of environmental health, then every effort at promoting human health will eventually hit a brick wall.

Health Care Reform: Problems for Human Health

Click here for part 1.

Fundamentally, our health care system is a mess because it focuses on treating the symptoms of a diseased culture that manifest in the form of human ailment.

In other words, it's our culture that's sick ... and one of the side effects of this cultural sickness is that humans get sick, too:

"The main source of pain, disability, and death is now an engineered—albeit non-intentional—harassment. The prevailing ailments, helplessness and injustice, are now the side-effects of strategies for progress. Nemesis is now so prevalent that it is readily mistaken for part of the human condition.

Ivan Illich can be a bit obscure in his writing, but the gist of it is that our culture is blind to the effects of our sick civilization upon human health. We've lost the memory of what human health is in a natural environment, just as we've lost the memory for what a natural old-growth forest looks like in the Midwestern United States.

Because optimal human health has fallen down the memory hole, modern medicine has been able to succeed by promoting 'fixes' for health ailments. Modern medicine is great at cutting out a tumor, setting a bone or providing pills to regulate a specific body function ... but is very poor at determining what the body is missing in order to promote self-healing. Even the little preventative care available focuses on regulating things like blood pressure and body weight ... other critical variables like vitamin and mineral levels are almost entirely ignored.

This problem has been further compounded, as medicine has become a commodity in a profit-seeking economy. There is a lot more profit in fixing ailments, as opposed to promoting optimal human health ... and so interventionist techniques and pills have become the answer for nearly every question.

When people talk about 'preventative medicine', this really isn't the same thing. Promoting optimal human health means eating nutrient dense foods, living in a nontoxic environment, being physically and emotionally engaged in the world, and using medicine as a tool to determine what specific elements a patient is lacking (such as a magnesium deficiency, or spending 8 hours a day in a sick building). Taking pills created from petrochemicals, cutting invasively inside the body, and dosing the body with radiation would be a last resort once it was clear the body wasn't capable of healing itself.

We are very, very far from seeing this reality ... the medical industry is approaching 1/8th of the total US economy. It got to this point by promoting pills and surgery; changing this perspective would require a total revolution in medicine.

The problem that modern medicine poses to human health is that it discounts the importance of proper nutrition (which is far more complex than USDA requirements), sees disease as something to be fought and eradicated, and sees every problem as a nail to be beaten down with their every expensive (and very profitable) hammer.

This fundamental issue will not be on the table in any health care discussion, as it reveals the soft underbelly of our toxic culture: we're the cause of most of our own pain and misery.