These politically interesting times call for a steady approach in education

Remember the Robert Burns poem warning of what happens to the best-laid plans? This week I planned to write a column about the ramifications and implementation of the Every Child Succeeds Act (ESSA), the law that replaced No Child Left Behind. However, after Tuesday’s election, the future of ESSA—indeed, the role of federal government in public education—has been thrown into question (along with almost everything else). President-elect Trump didn’t say much about education during the campaign, and speculation about what he may do ranges from the possibility that he may ignore it altogether all the way to his possible plan to dismantle the US Department of Education in its entirety. As with many of his other policies, our immediate response can only be to wait and see what develops. Teachers, parents, and students are all likely feeling uncertainty for what the future may hold.

Politically interesting times like these call for a steady approach in education. No matter who inhabits the White House, our job as educators is to continue to do the best we can to prepare our students for a future that, by definition, is uncertain. Whether we were elated or depressed by Tuesday’s election, it is the result of our democratic process: a process that has worked successfully for over 200 years. As adults, we are required to keep our focus on our students and their needs. No matter what comes along, we will need students who can read, write, create, think, and—perhaps most importantly of all—adapt to the rapidly changing world around them.

I do feel compelled to raise my hope, as a public educator and a firm believer in the benefits of public education for all our citizens, that we will not see an increase in the privatization of education in the coming years. The statistics in that area are not encouraging. Multiple studies nationwide indicate that students who attend privately operated charter schools perform academically about the same as their publicly educated peers. I also just finished reading a fascinating study issued by The National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, a non-partisan entity that gathers all kinds of data regarding privatization. In June, 2016, they published a comprehensive literature review and study of marketing campaigns used by both large, national Charter Management Organizations and by small, independent charter schools. While student performance was ultimately about the same regardless of the school students attended, the study concluded that public perception of the schools was directly correlated to the amount of money the schools or CMOs spent on marketing materials through the internet, direct mail, and professional video creation. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that the last thing schools should have to spend money on in challenging economic times is marketing. Schools should be evaluated on the performance of their students, not the depth of their pockets and the money they spend marketing themselves. I also firmly believe that the trend toward marketing and privatization encourages segregation of all kinds, and my experience as a citizen and a public educator for over twenty years tells me that such segregation cannot be beneficial to our society. I have spent my adult life working in public schools, and the amount of growth and progress in students I have witnessed over those years is not anything I want to see go away.

In fact, the strongest indicator I can think of in favor of the continued existence of public schools is the behavior I witnessed from most of the students and teachers at Colony High on Wednesday morning. Some were clearly thrilled with the election result, while some were clearly disappointed. Lots of students and staff come to the library at Colony in their free time—before school, after school, and during lunch—and all day long, I heard thoughtful, respectful conversations. Public schools put together large numbers of people whose opinions and circumstances differ wildly, and in the end, the result is unequivocally greater than the sum of its parts. That is what keeps me happily coming back to work year after year.