This is Innovation?
What the Heck is Happening in our
Public Schools?
Why does it feel like educators are not running public education?
Why does everything have to be “evidence-based”?
Why does everything have to be measurable?
Why did learning targets and outcomes appear on our “to do” lists out of nowhere?
Why are so many districts implementing RTI/MTSS?
Why so many benchmark tests?
Why are the strategic plans of so many school districts nearly identical?
Will we have to measure socio-emotional learning?
One thing that hasn’t changed for most teachers is how much we love our jobs when we are in the zone teaching our students. That said we struggle to understand the changes in our field over the last several decades. Yes, COVID-19 has wreaked havoc in our world, but that isn’t our only problem.
It is all neatly packaged in the Every Student Succeeds Act,
which became law in 2015 with lots of bipartisan support. One needs to dig around,
but there in a section titled, “Safe and Healthy Students” is a provision that
explains the changes we are experiencing today. The concern can be found in
Title I, Part D, Section 4108, page 485. Title IV, in the original text of the
law, which can be found here.
You may be familiar with the terms pay for success, social impact bond (SIB) investing, or pay for outcomes. Pay for success in public education is written into federal law in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). ESSA opened the door to welcoming partnerships between government entities and private investors.
Some people may find this an attractive idea to fund the needs of public education, especially in low-income and marginalized communities. Investors like to think they can profit, while still doing “good work”. But privatizing public services allows some to profit from the tax base of those same low-income, marginalized communities, and could be fully avoided if states would only fully fund all public school districts fairly.
Living or teaching in an affluent community gives no immunity to social impact investing. As all school districts update their strategic plans, we can thank ESSA for all of the focus on maximizing strategic partnerships, building school-community partnerships and the quest for alternative revenue sources that we see in updated school district strategic plans.
Equity, social justice, and sustainability are all terms being used to spin social impact investing into a palatable form. Since both parties are accomplices in this plundering of our public tax dollars, each party had to find a way to market this type of investing to their constituents. This was simple on the right; many Republicans openly support the privatization of public services. Getting Democrats on board would require finesse, wordsmithing, and marketing expertise.
Social impact bond investing is being marketed as a way to create equity (the fairness kind) in our public school system, but really it is a goldmine for Wall Street investors and venture capitalists. American politicians from both parties are looking to support their donor's desires to profit from untapped markets through SIBs. This negatively impacts public education, healthcare, social work, criminal justice, and more.
One example of social impact bond investing in education is in the area of special education. Investors give a “grant” (an investment with hopes of a return) to help lower the cost of paying for special education services. Special education is one of the most expensive areas to support in public education. In this case, by investing in sending "high-risk" students to “high quality pre-k", investors posit that there will be fewer students identified for special education by a specific deadline. The investors are paid a bonus when students are not identified for special education. This is just what happened in Utah, when Goldman Sachs funded a pay for success program in kindergarten. Read about it here. It seems obvious that expert educators did not develop this idea.
The thing is, learning disabilities are not caused by a lack of pre-k. In fact, the Learning Disability Association of America (LDA) defines them as follows:
Learning disabilities are due to genetic and/or neurobiological factors that alter brain functioning in a manner which affects one or more cognitive processes related to learning. These processing problems can interfere with learning basic skills such as reading, writing and/or math. They can also interfere with higher level skills such as organization, time planning, abstract reasoning, long or short term memory and attention. It is important to realize that learning disabilities can affect an individual’s life beyond academics and can impact relationships with family, friends and in the workplace.
Surely, most teachers, staff, and administrators would agree that high quality pre-k would benefit all children. Yet, if legislators really wanted universal pre-K, all they had to do was expand Head Start. Head Start’s infrastructure is in place. It is in the position to scale up to accommodate all kids, including those with disabilities.
Like everything in politics, follow the money.
Some
people may deeply believe they are helping our country’s “most vulnerable”, but
social impact bond investing is driving down the quality of the student
experience in public education. Teachers know better than to believe that
scripted lessons are best for children, or that every class at each grade level
march relatively in-step with one another. Teachers know when they need to slow
down or speed up depending on the needs of each child, and the children change yearly. The time pressure of various assessments, including benchmark tests may create lots of data, but certainly doesn't encourage individualization. When teachers have autonomy returned to them, the children will benefit.
Students can benefit from RTI/MTSS, or they may get stuck in a slow & time consuming process which can delay access to services needed. There is always one truth in the marketing spin, and in the case of special education referrals & learning disability diagnoses, it is true that there is an over representation of students of color. RTI/MTSS is touted as the equity salve, but is it really?
Social impact bond investing is dictating what teachers are directed to do as we prep, create units & lessons, teach, and assess. It is dictating the interventions we use, and they way we use them.
Some might say that social impact bond investing brought corporate America to public schools, but no one in corporate America is experiencing the ethical dilemmas teachers and staff face when we are doing the bidding of Wall Street. Frankly, each time we write lesson objectives, we are helping think up future investment ideas. When we are told that our outcomes must be measurable, investors will be analyzing that data. Every SLO (Strategic Learning Objective) must be measurable, right? Know we know why.
Stay tuned for the next post from What the Heck is Happening in our Public Schools?
This post and all others represent my perspectives, not those of my employer or union.
