(00:00:00) If you look at the national assessment results. And I urge that you get a package of those things and look at them pretty carefully because it do give you quite a good idea of where kids are and I think we ought to spend a minute or two. Just looking at the 17 year olds who are still in school remember about this time 20 or more percent have dropped out nationally and let's take a look at what these kids were about to graduate high school. This is the successful kids can or cannot do the toughest tasks in writing is something like write a letter to the manager of your local supermarket applying for a job. Remember? Lots of other kids will be applying for jobs in there. Not many of them. So convince them that you're the one you don't have to be perfect in spelling or grammar. You are expected to give one or two reasons why you should get the job such as I've been the treasurer of My Boy Scout Troop, and I'm there was no money missing or I used to work on my uncle's candy store and I know how important it is to be on time. You'll be counting on. Be something like that the percentage of graduating youngsters who are able to write a simple letter like that. Believe me. If you saw what is considered an acceptable letter by nape many of you would not think it's acceptable. It's not a high standard if anything you might agree with it or you might think that it's set to low but they're very few people here who would say that that's too tough. Only 20% of the graduating youngsters can do that. Remember the dropouts of mostly dropped 20% when you move to math and you take six common fractions and ask the graduating seniors to arrange them in size places 1/2 1/3 56 that cetera no surprises the ones you bump into all the time 12% are able to do that percentage of kids who are able to read an editorial and newspaper and understand what the editorial writer has said about 35% and the percentage of kids who can look at a railroad timetable or a bus schedule and figure out what bus or train to take in order to get to a certain place by a certain time as 4.9% If you take all minorities out of that last one the whites, it's 5.9% So what I'm saying with respect and then if you go onto the social study stuff as to what percentage of kids know what half-century certain things occurred in or look at the science results of last week or the recent math results. They are they're quite shocking and what is what a shocking? Of course what's shocking is the bottom is shocking but I think we're not enough people who are looking at how many people get to make what nape considers to be the highest category. Now, the highest category is what we use to call ability to enter College. I once upon a time the only people who were able to enter schools and we're able to sit for two or three days of essays in the old college entrance exam board examinations were people who who had these skills the percentages who are able to handle College material as they enter college, but for 5% There's a percentage of kids who've learned high school math who can read something which is mildly Technical and understand it now that is so if you look over all these results. And don't be fooled by what nape calls adequate because those definitions are their arbitrary definitions get rid of the definitions and look at absolutes in your own mind as to whether you think that writing a simple letter like that after all those years of education represents such a tremendous task that only 20% should be able to do it. I think that you will find that the percentage of kids getting an education and this is a matter of judgment just as napes definitions of what is adequate or what is what they considered to be the highest standard or the lower ones. But I think if you look over all these assessments, if you're if you're tough, you'll say that we're educating maybe 10% of our kids not to an intellectual standard. I haven't talked about Shakespeare or Dickens or calculus or probability Theory. I'm talking about railroad timetables newspaper editorials writing a simple letter. Now, I'm not talking about intellectual stuff here me if we were getting into intellectual Rems. I might say well look lot of people never get into that won't be able to do it. We don't yet have enough Earthly experience to know what percent what percentage of people really can we expect to get into that but here we're talking not about Basics, but we're talking about the common sorts of things. That one would expect in the functioning of a Of a modern society and that most people should be able to do that. You might say we're educating 10% You might say 15, you might say 20 those of you who are very soft and don't think that anything traditional like this means anything might go up to 25 or 30 and some of you who are ready to throw out all sorts of traditional learnings might get as high as 35. I don't think anybody here would have the guts to look me in the eyes and say out we're educating 40% of the kids in this country not to an intellectual standard but to a standard where the kids are getting the competencies that one feels that one needs to get, you know, middle level types of jobs. Well that it seems to me it seems to me that there are several ways of you know, getting into the at-risk question one is to sort of Define it a very tough way. And I think William Julius Wilson does that it kind of says that those are the kids who when I look around them have no connections. There's no helping hand. They don't see anybody going to work and therefore that whole world which school supposed to prepare you for has no meaning. That's one way another way is to say that that You know, we don't know right now that may very well be the 50 or 60 percent of our kids are if you define at risk, you're sort of not being connected with the educational system in any sort of real way then that line is not all the way over here with 5% or 10% or 15% or 20% of the kids. This is a system that is not turning out 80% of the products. Okay, and we need quality control for 20% This is a lemon Factory. attorney at 80% lemons and if you turn me on 80% lemons, then it's kind of this gets me to the second question. Why and what do we do about it? If that's the case, it seems to me that if this is the case then any proposals that deal with relatively minor changes. Are going to be inadequate to bring about results that are quite big and we need results that are quite big if we're to maybe I'm all off. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe that God only made four point nine percent of a smart enough to read a bus schedule what 20% of us might have to write a simple letter. So I think that it I think what we need to do is the same as what we do if we were dealing in some industry producing all manufacturing products, you'll see in a minute that I don't think that that's a good analogy for schools students aren't products. They're not inanimate objects being moved through the system, but nevertheless I think that what we've got to do is say that that the system doesn't work for most and we've got it ask why and the analogy that I like to use is One out of medicine where for a couple of thousand years people went to get help and they hope that the doctor would help them but for a couple of thousand years if you went to a doctor you had a pretty good chance that the doctor would hurt you instead of helping you might even kill you not because he was vicious or Wicked I wanted to do it but for a couple of for until relatively recently in human history, they didn't know they were supposed to wash their hands of sterilize their instruments or do things like that mean it was something was happening in the world of medicine as part of the regular working procedures of the doctors, which were actually harmful. And so what I like to do is spend a few minutes with you asking the question of whether our schools similarly are on a regular basis doing certain things that are not only not helpful, but they're actually harmful because somehow I think that kids on their own would not achieve so poorly as I think that I think that we're helping them we're helping them to fail so to speak. And I think here we all have experiences and if we look at them, I'm not going to refer to any kind of big studies or in depth psychology. I'm kind of going to refer to the experiences that everybody has here and just very primitive and Elementary Notions of psychology, which we all except not as a matter of theory, but we accept them because they tore part of our own experiences I'm going to say here is essentially that schools are organized in such a way as to turn large number of kids off terms of learning and here I think the analogy is all-important. We can't educate children if we could educate children more children will be educated a lot of teachers standing up there saying the right things are a lot of textbooks filled with the right stuff. If the process of Education were merely a process of pouring stuff into kids would be easy. We all know that education is a process in which You will go to and for themselves the X the externals the teachers the classroom Etc. Well can be helpful or harmful. But essentially education as a prize is something that results from the work the kids do and I think that Ted sizes notion of the student is worker is there's a very good one and those are the British management. Gurus name is Charles handy who who talks about the organization of schools. Now, I want to touch you on a few of the things that schools though that that turned kids off. I'm really saying is the only thing that gets a kid to learn as the kid has that want to learn the kid has to say I'm going to do this work. I'm going to pay attention. I'm going to listen. I'm going to write I'm going to read I'm going to question. I'm going to do a whole bunch of things out of the kid doesn't do those things. Then the kid doesn't learn no matter what the teacher does no matter what anybody does all around the extent to which most Improvement of education programs. So I keep the kid there an hour longer keep them there a month longer improve the The teacher is trained and prove the way the teacher presents the material improve the textbooks. All those are good for the ten or twenty percent of the kids who are listening and who are engaged and if you assume that keeping them an hour longer will keep them engaged now a longer he will learn more or a month more off of the kid who's listening if the teacher gives a better lecturer the kid who's listening is going to learn better or more but for the kid who isn't listening who is engaged more of these external things don't make any difference because to sit through an extra hour of not listening gives you about the same results as sitting through the first five or six hours or an extra month or a lecture brilliantly delivered is about the same to someone who's sleeping as one that isn't a brilliantly I mean organized and delivered so that handy asks a question. He says well look if schools are workplace and have kids are workers who have to be involved in their work. Let's take a look in the outside world and ask ourselves. What is the workplace in the outside world that most closely resembles a classroom? Well, it's not like the Merchant Marine. It's not like a coal mine. It's not like a steel mill or an auto plant or a hospital. It's most like an office and office. You'll listen to reports you give reports you write reports you read reports. I mean all the shuffling words and paper and those were it's not exact but that's the closest if you look the outside world and then he he asked this question. He says what would you think of a manager of an office who organized it in the following way out? You just got hired. So you told sit down here is your desk and as your boss over there and he's going to give you some work to do and around you are 25 other workers that don't exactly the same work that you are doing. But please never talk to them there to do their work around you do yours alone. And by the way after you given your work and you do it 45 minutes from now a bell will ring and you'll be asked to leave your co-workers and your boss and this work and you move to another room you get another desk or totally different type of work to do a different boss and 25 other co-workers. We'll be doing the same work that you're doing there. But you also not to talk to them and every 45 minutes you will be moved in this way throughout the day. Well, somebody would immediately say you're crazy. You can't get anybody to effective work. That way people take time to get used to work and changing the type of work. They do every 25 minutes is naughty that in an office. You expect people to turn to next to them and say is this the right way am I on the right path? Can you help me out a little bit you'd fire somebody who did something wrong who didn't check with somebody. So what's the matter with you? So what is common sense in the real world is called cheating in school and and you wouldn't have and wouldn't have a worker relate to seven or eight or nine different bosses each day. It's hard enough to relate to one people organizing form unions because they find that difficult. Imagine having seven or eight different personalities with different expectations and so forth. Now this business of getting a person could do that every Fort to move every 45 minutes makes perfect sense of the student is viewed as an inanimate object. Through a factory to which the teachers are putting on Parts. You see one teachers putting English on to him and other one is scoring math and to him and other one is doing physics to them. So forth if you view the and and from semester not only from period to period but semester to semester and year to year etcetera so that we have we have essentially a faulty analogy. Now, what are what are some of the things aside from that the wrong with schools? Well first we violate the basic principle that we all accept of learning namely that we all learn at a different rate. We may learn the different right, but damn it. You better learn the same right that I'm talking because I can't talk to you all individually 25 different times. So the minute you have the lecture and the and teacher talk as the primary mode of delivery of Education. You automatically have a system in which you know, that one third of the kids are going to be bored because they know it already and another third are going to be lost. So to at least two-thirds the kids anytime are not getting what you're delivering. And you've organized that and what you cause then later to tracking systems and even the tracking systems, you've you have this this problem. Secondly you have another problem and that is that you requiring all kids to do something which most human beings cannot do and that is to sit still and keep quiet for about five hours at a time. I listen to someone talk for that whole period remember what that person is saying are there. Otherwise we'll show our there were videotapes audiotapes is peer tutoring. There are computers. There are all kinds of otherwise going but we basically only have one way in schools most part one way and that's it. So then we also have something else that now I'm assuming something here. I'm assuming Something about human beings namely that if you do, well it's something or if you're able to do it you do it and it's and you get recognized for it by the other kids and however, if you can't do it and if you feel that you're going to look bad at a certain point you say this is not my game. I'm going to stop trying and what I'm saying is that huge numbers of kids huge a majority of kids are ritualistically going through the motions, but have really or are rebelling but that there are relatively small numbers of kids who are really in the game even in, Minnesota. Because you may look pretty good compared to other states. But when you look at what percentage of kids in this state or any other state are able to do high school math, when they leave high school or read? What is a college textbook or write a half way these letter or do any of these things? So maybe you're not at four point nine percent. Maybe you're 6 percent who can read a timetable or 7. Maybe you're not a 20% who can write a letter. Maybe you're a 25 or 30 or 35? I mean, even if you're great on American Standards you stink but that's the that's the important thing to get hold of absolute standards mean something and you know, you can do it because in other countries where they have school systems which are not good from the point of view of educating the entire population. I'm not going to Japan now with different cultural are but Britain Germany France Etc. They can take 15 to 20% of the kids and raise them to the standard that we only raised four or five wise to now we don't want to move over to their kind of system. But it shows that it can be done. In a modern Western industrial society. So why not? Another thing that we do to kids is to constantly ask them questions and we ask them questions. It's great for the kids who are able to answer them. But for the kids who never have the answers what we're doing is publicly humiliating them in front of in front of their peers. We also time to organize schools are an annual basis which means the kids have to have a very remarkable type of character of maturity. And that is they have to know and September 4th 5th and 6th at everything they do that day is going to accumulate to a reward next June 15th. Something most adults can't do if you gave all the adults in your schools that total paycheck on the day school opens for the for the full school year how many of them would have any money left next June? I mean the adults in the school don't have that characteristic which would enable them to realize the importance there every little thing that you do everyday cumulate and we expect the kids to there's it is not sensible for a kid to go home and start doing his work the first second third and fourth day when he's got all that. Time that is not in terms of the usual character sure. He's got somebody at home or if he's one of the very successful kids, you know who's getting great gratification out of it. So we have a whole bunch of things. Now, there are other there. There are a few other things here to which one or two, which I would like to mention on this which are what your real problems and that is that the range of skills that we teach in school and that we measure and that we recognize kids for extremely narrow and that means that there are lots of kids who have very important talents talents which will later be rewarded in the world. But we don't say to them you're smart because you got in that we only say you're smart. If you're able to do certain things on certain tests and so forth. For example, if this were a meeting of top people in the world would who accomplish the major things in business and the Arts and all sorts of fields a very small percentage of you would have been in the upper third of your graduating classes either in college or High School. A very high percentage of you would have been people who had real trouble in school. Why don't because there's a lot more to being a real human being and to make a contribution in the world than being able to manipulate numbers and words in abstract unmediated by any form of Technology an absolutely individual rather than a group basis. That is the kinds of skills that we and here you hear that Lauren Resnick piece that you have in your booklet is absolutely first-rate and you ought to get the essays that Superman has put out related to exactly the same thing you ought to read Howard Gardener stuff and you want to read Robert Sternberg stuff. But but suppose you have a kid who is very very creative comes up with all kinds of new ideas. All those things important in the world. They sure are those are the people likely to really do things. But is there a we're in the curriculum? Do we have a reward that? Where do we reward the asking of good questions? Where do we reward knowing how to use the rules of the game? I mean people in our society to make out very well if they can figure out what the right tax deductions are. Somebody else can do the math. If you can figure out the loopholes, we don't we don't do that. So that by the way what I'm saying is that a lot (00:20:51) of kids who are really very (00:20:52) smart but not smart on the things that we put in there but Smart in ways which will be very important for themselves and for our society later on we tell them that dumb because we only measure them on a single narrow set of things. So what I'm saying is this I am saying that we are taking an awful lot of kids with taking about 75 or 80 or 85 percent of our kids and we're making them feel so lousy and we're making them feel so unsuccessful and we're creating context that are so frustrating for them that they sort of internally drop out. They may ritualistically if they've got all sorts of supports at home. You living in a middle-class Community you have home supports Community, they'll go through the rituals and everything else. But how many kids when they graduate here in Minnesota? Enjoy reading? After they graduate, I mean, I think that would be a something to look at. So the question is what can be done about I guess one little footnote here is that we should also say that I started with a kids and I've started with them very deliberately because I think that any discussion that doesn't spend 90% of its time on the question of how does this change where the kids will learn or not learn that is all the assumptions. There's almost no discussion of why is it that some kids get disengaged? Why is it they stopped trying? Why is it they stopped coming? Why is it they aren't learning? We don't get down to that level. That's the only important level we deal with all sorts of assumptions if you raise salaries if you have a longer day, if you have a longer year, if you have certain incentives, if you allow people to leave schools or to come to schools, you have choice you have competition all these things might be good. I'm not arguing against any of them. They may all make some difference. Some positive some negative some mix some depending on the context. I'm not arguing against any of those things. I'm saying that anyone who deals with this is like saying look the Japanese are knocking the hell out of us on automobiles and we're not going to deal with a little intricacies of what makes this thing work or shoddy or not work. We're going to deal with questions. Well, maybe we can beat the Japanese if we get every worker to stay an hour longer each day over get him to give up a vacation or maybe we can have a bonus plan for the workers where we have a bonus for 5% of them who we think are really doing well and we fire a certain percentage at the other end, or maybe we could I mean if you were a client try to think of the kinds of discussion that is considered to be serious in education about trying to improve schools and move that into a factory setting just imagine people trying to produce a better product in a factory setting by having the kinds of discussions without talking about what is wrong down there where it happens. There's no necessary connection between what we're saying there maybe. But you shouldn't have too much faith in it because the light education libraries are filled with volumes and volumes of stuff about all sorts of educational research and 99% of them end up saying it made no difference. The class sizes were searched the administrative or so. I mean all sorts of things. And so you also ought to raise some questions, whether any of these things that have some distance will really make a difference. Now this system also doesn't work for teachers as a lot of talk about teachers and I think that they should be because I'm not surprised at the math and science results. And I think we're going to get the same Math and Science results almost no matter what we do because we have by and large we're not attracting into elementary schools people who have any feeling of comfort as a matter of fact, well, if you look at what is what are the exams given in places like California or Florida or other places for entry level teachers in elementary school in let's say arithmetic. Well, the exam is a 6th grade arithmetic exam same that you would give the sixth grade kids in elementary school in the passing Mark the teacher 65% And teachers Ohio don't make 65 but even if you get 65, what does it mean? It means the teacher only gets two out of three, right? Now what does the future like that do with kids? First of all teacher doesn't want to teach it. I wouldn't want to teach something to bunch of kids. If I was going to get one third of them wrong or I teach it in a very stiff way. I'm only going to teach what I have in my book because I don't want anything new to come up where I'm going to get one out of three long, but the other thing one way or another I'm going to get across the kids like you don't really need those. Look. I don't know any math. I became a teacher. A teacher of math yet among other things. We don't need it. Well, how are you going to get how you going to get a million people teaching those kids? Who who who who do know? So, I think it's important. However given 2.2 2.3 2.4 million teachers in the current structure. There is no way you're ever going to pay 2.2 million people a lot of money. 20 people there is no way in which you going to provide them with enough time to actually coach kids and the mock get kids to write a lot in the mock their papers because in order to do that you'd have to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio and that means hiring more teachers and there aren't more teachers. I imagine you got at least that as a footnote in the demographics that aside from what's Happening to the teachers are part of this Workforce and the labor shortage that we're going into and so we're not likely to get more and the only way to get more is to dig deeper into the talent pool and get people who are dumb. I mean, there'll be some of those left done by achievement stand, you know, so the more people you get essentially your sacrum (00:26:41) quantity and quality have (00:26:42) relationship here. If you double the number of doctors, you'd have many more doctors need to be able to get to a doctor faster, but you have to double the number of medical schools lower the (00:26:51) taxes lower the (00:26:52) qualifications for professors of medicine and you'd get a whole band. Well, if at the turn of the century we had decided that everybody who deals with medicines or Cool instruments or patients etcetera had to be a doctor and you couldn't have anyone else today. You'd have seven million doctors in this country instead of 500,000. They would all earn salaries less than teachers and there and they would practice very differently. There would be medical principles and medical superintendents watching them very carefully because we wouldn't trust them. I would be very very different field because you can't select the same number the quality of people and you can't pay them. I mean the whole thing changes when you move for five hundred thousand seven million. So you also can't have enough time for these teachers talk to each other. You can't have the collegiality the sharing so forth because that to means more teachers in the current structure. So the question is we need to do what anyone would do if they were in business producing a lot of lemons and where the workers were very unhappy somebody would say now look I don't know how to do it, but we are going to offer a prize of some sort anyone who comes up with a something we will call a school which meets the following specifications and there are a lot of different ways of meeting these specifications just as if you were building a home you could describe to 12 different Architects the fact that you like to swim you like to play tennis and you have a good Hi-Fi set you want to listen to music and you have an extensive Library here your hobbies and The number of people and uh architect would build would develop a design and Architectural plan for house that would meet your needs. Ultimately. You may prefer to live in one of those houses are another but there are many different ways of meeting specifications. What we need to do is to develop certain specifications. We need to say to people out there look, Come up with a plan that would take into account the fact that people learn at their own rate. Come and take into account the fact that most people can't sit still and listen to Somebody talk for four or five hours a day take into account that the percentage of people who can learn through in the first second third fourth and fifth grades, mostly through words given by teachers only 10 15 or 20% provide a system in which there are alternative ways for people to get to the same end. So I'm not (00:29:16) changing the ends. This isn't (00:29:17) the 60s. We're not saying those who can't get it through the word can do any damn thing. They like and can have a lot of fun. They got to reach the same and develop a system in which the learning of kids is relatively private. That is everybody when he or she learns makes a lot of mistakes and that's why very few of us take driving lessons from our husbands or wives. It's not that they are poor drivers or driving instructors. It's that we don't like somebody we care for it to see the things that we're doing when we're When we're trying and kids will like that to develop a school a school is structured in such a way that a kid who's making mistakes doesn't isn't disgraced humiliated by all the other kids in front of all the other kids in other words. The theory there is that he'll hang in long or if he has the equivalent of the driving instructor rather than his husband or wife crate put that into the school structure take into account of the fact that a lot of things that the kids do in school are not that interesting a lot of things are pretty boring and what have modern industrial is found out about boring work. Well if somebody's going to sit and make the same goddamn part and an auto Factory for 35 years is no way to get him interested in that part over and it's being good in and of itself, but you do change things if you put him in relationship to another another bunch of workers in a team and that team is competing in certain ways with other teams, then he's not that much interested in the ball bearing but he is interested in his fellow workers and in the types of recognition. it gets so that the whole notion of Cooperative learning peer tutoring of use of Technology of changing your work from one boring thing to something that's interesting something else of of make changing all these things around now, Develop a school which takes into account creativity. As well as learning and as well as what you might call, you know, worldly knowledge use manipulating the rules of the game incorporate that into what you teach and what you recognize and structure School in such a way that at least some teachers can earn very large sums of money so that you can attract lots of people in hoping that they'll get that and some will and some won't just this not everybody becomes a senior partner at a law firm and structure in such a way that since the kids will be not listening to lectures most of the time but we'll be teaching themselves Cooperative learning peer tutoring audiotapes videotapes other forms of technology and and a team of adults which includes some non teachers. That the adults will have a good deal of time to do individual coaching. And paper marking and talking to each other. In other ways be nice world for the teachers as well as for the kids. And say now any invite schools or of a whole school doesn't want to do it say look if you got 12 people or 15 teachers in the school you sit around and if you come up with this plan, we will set you free. Now. I want to spend a few minutes talking about this business of setting you free because I'm now going to approach it. I started with kids and why they're turned off and why the system turns them off and how you have to develop a system that connects to the kids. And therefore you have to put out specification. You got to put out specifications as I just did (00:32:46) with says look come up with a drawing come up with an (00:32:48) architectural plan. Which according to our current hypotheses is going to be good for the kids and good for the teachers because you can do a lot of things that good for the kids. But if you're getting teachers who don't know their arithmetic or science of aren't interested in culture themselves aren't going to be any good now now I go to another part of the problem. and in this in our school problems and no one has said no one has said I wonder why. that maybe one of the reasons that our school system is not doing well. Is it the United States of America is the only country that has local school boards? Now I'm not you know, I'm not I'm not saying that that is the case but I'm saying that it's amazing that since we are the only country that has local school boards and we are having problems compared with all these countries that no one has come forth now Douglas MacArthur thought that was the main problem. That's why he developed a Japanese school system eliminating what he thought was the major flaw. He might have been wrong, but he might have been right. We don't know whether that's I rather doubt that that's why the Japanese doing that way. Let me tell you what I think is wrong and why I think something like (00:34:00) what I just proposed helps with us, I'm not I don't think school board members are evil people on the contrary. I think that they devote a lot of time and energy to doing something mostly either for no pay or for very little in compensation because they want to they believe in the system. They want to make it work. We have a system that's loaded with all sorts of well-intentioned people and they're not making it work. So the problem is not to deal with the motives of people but to deal with why the system works, that way is by A good if you had a bunch of people who didn't give a damn they were all in it (00:34:32) for you know to (00:34:35) plunder and loot and to do this and that they'd say well that makes sense. But see a lot of people and teaching who are not well paid who are crying like mad when they fail you see supervisors trying to do things easy everybody and I think doesn't get put together. Well, if you look at the politics of education and a very simple sort of phenomenological way, you just noticed that look school board members are not elected in partisan elections, if they're to be there to help the kids and help build the system they have to be re-elected and they have to be known the only way you get to be known as to get your name in the newspaper because you don't have it. You don't have PA sees you don't have the party structure. You don't have major industrial firms coming to contribute to you. So you got to make it in some way. You've got to become recognized you become recognized by saying things that school board meetings and the things that get reported by John merrow are outrageous things, which you find that are. Weather system not because John merrow is because that's news. I mean, it's not knows that you know, 38 million people kids went to school yesterday. It isn't knows that supposed to happen. What is nose is what something happens it isn't supposed to and so what happens is it school board meetings is that the chief is the superintendent of schools has to face a school board that hires him on contract or her for certain period of time has to face a public meeting every week or every two weeks where everything that any board member could find or any board member did find but somebody brought and said why the hell and they feel that that isn't it? They don't want to have a constituent out there saying I went to Shankar who's on we elected to the school board and I brought this thing to his attention. He never even brought it up at the school meeting you're expected to do it. So has nothing to do with good or evil. This is the role it goes with the territory. Now what happens if every week or two weeks, I'm you know, every one of those members is bringing all this stuff up and saying Bennett, how do you explain this? And how do you explain that and what? Well, then it really in self-defense has to put out a book of rules and tell it what he's really tell you. He said don't do this because this might happen to every rule is a result of something that happened in the last hundred years. That was brought up at a board meeting. I said do we have a rule against that know now that happens you've done it against the rules. So essentially the message that goes from the school board the superintendent out the principals and others is that the overriding concern of this school system is to make sure that nothing ever goes wrong. Well, that's the overriding concern nothing good can ever happen because it means no chances no risk as long as things keep going the same monotonous orderly pattern everybody's quiet. It's sitting in their seats. I mean if that is ultimately what's measured not what's measured at the end of the year or 10 years, but that's what's measured every week or two weeks when the school board is there and what's measured every two weeks. It's the bottom line at the same as American Business that the short-term bottom line determines whether the chief executive officer can get a big bonus or move on to some other job. Not the long-term planning not the you have something in a hopper which ten years from now is going to beat the whole world, but that's a big problem that American business has and it's a big problem in our schools have this is the educational equivalent of looking for in this case. It's not even short-term results its short-term lack of anything negative happening. Well school board's don't like it either I've spoken to lots of They don't they didn't they'll tell you lots of times. I didn't come into this to talk about the plumbing or to talk about what that one didn't at school or why this kid was in that hallway. I mean, they really they go home and they feel what am I doing? May I came in to try to improve the schools and I'm talking about all these little administrative details. They would like to be removed from that, but I don't know how So the notion that we have proposed is it developed the notion of a charter school. Now, what does it Charter? Well Henry Hudson had a charter Charter is something that usually awarded by some agency to allow some individual or group of people to go out and explore relatively unguarded territories something where there's some risk involved and you have to have a plan and you don't just Charter everybody and there is a chart there is a mission to the Charter. You're not just going out there to do your own thing. You're going out there to accomplish a purpose and you have a certain period of time after the time you're supposed to come back and you've either succeeded or you haven't succeeded but the notion is to be able to First and by the way, one of the reasons that a lot of teachers and administrators don't want to get involved in gee I got a great idea, but it would take a lot of time and a lot of energy, you know something we tried something some years ago, and we got halfway into it and boy, we killed ourselves and we sacrifice then you know, what happened some Kind of the school board meeting and I made a lot of noise and we were told we had to stop doing it. I mean the whole educational world is full of stories about people who are one third of the way there one half the way there even people who the parents and the kids loved it and the teachers loved it and the indicators were all good. But somebody from some other neighborhood in the school district came along and it was against their philosophy or ideology to do it. So it got pulled out kids are not to be forced (00:39:52) to stay in an experiment which which (00:39:55) which can't hold on from we will create a mechanism where the school board votes are certain points is all right, we issue the charter that means anybody who comes to complain a school board meeting they said hey, look we had that meeting two years ago. We issued a charter and now we have (00:40:08) no control over the next five (00:40:10) years. Parents seem to like it if the parents pull their kids out that thing will be dismantled or will be reduced but the faculty is there and there and there are certain specifications they came in with they said that they will they had specifications to do the things I just told you about they had a plan and they are meeting those specifications. We have no reason so you create a buffer School boards need a way of allowing professionals. The superintendent the principles and teams of teachers. They need a buffer a way in which they can turn to the public and say we've lost control over this voluntarily we did it because we're doing it because people need five years to accomplish something or seven years to accomplish something and they aren't going to invest with themselves. If they think that the next superintendent of the next School Board election or the next group of people who come into a meeting (00:41:02) are going to turn it around. So in that sense the governing issues are very important. Now I'm (00:41:09) skipping a lot of things but that's all right. I just want to touch on (00:41:14) two things on a few minutes late, but let me try to do these very quickly. (00:41:20) What will make this doable now the 19th some people say, well, it sounds like the 1960s you have a lot of people doing different things. Well first I like say a lot of things that happened to 60s wanted so bad. I wrote a lot of stuff against the (00:41:33) abuses at the notion that kids should take over (00:41:36) and as they didn't like to do certain things. They didn't have to and whole bunch of things. I think that was that was very negative. But the notion that kids learn at different rates in different times and that you start thinking about (00:41:45) different ways of grouping kids (00:41:47) and deal with time as a flexible thing. All that all those things were good aside from the side from the ideological counterculture new left. Take over the kids were in charge and not Society or the adults. There's another problem and you see that problem in Ted sizers Coalition. You see it with John good lad schools. You see it almost anywhere and that is hey, it's hot enough to stand in front of kids five hours a day and talk to them. It's ten times. It's hard to say now what I'm not going to talk to them very much, but I now have to review 55 videotapes to see what the appropriate ones and 25 audio tapes and I have to go and look at what's in the computers and after read the literature on how to group kids and how to do this and that and I have to create models that they play with and stuff that they put together. That's a hell of a lot (00:42:31) harder. It's much harder. So what happens in all these places people burn out? Because that's like asking somebody to practice medicine but you have no medicines and no procedures. You'll you'll invent (00:42:46) everything as you go along your doctor. Here's your theoretical training on physiology and this and this and this yours, I mean every single profession has a certain number of standard things that the professional chose us from their law firms there certain standard procedures. Yes, there's always a matter of judgment but there's an awful lot out there. So (00:43:04) the professional can (00:43:07) reserve his time and his deep thinking for hard cases. (00:43:11) Hey, this is one which is too close to call. I don't know (00:43:14) which of these would work (00:43:14) because I mean there are these hard (00:43:16) cases. That's what you spend your time. I or nothing works. Can we create something new and different which isn't out there (00:43:23) but there have to be these things. Well now what you have now with technology Is that if you started a bunch of these charter schools and different places we can go to a company we can get microcomputers into each one of these places and what you could have within a very short period of time as a national teacher professional data Resource Bank, that is a seventh grade teacher who wants to teach about any subject and say Here's my grade and here's the (00:43:49) subject and out can pop stuff which isn't just an individual thought but which has been tried by a hundred thousand teachers across the country who agree that the following two or three video tapes are the best on this subject the following two chapters of books are the best the following collections of pictures from National Geographic of the best. The following are two or three games the followings computer thing and what you have what you potentially have for. The first time is the ability to get a professional judgment not the Judgment of one individual professional but the Judgment of the profession And once it's out there you can give prizes to people for coming up with better ideas and knocking out something that's in there. And you can get something called progress in the field of Education rather than everyone Reinventing the wheel now my final (00:44:43) thing I'd like to talk about is that (00:44:46) changing all these things makes no sense (00:44:48) unless you also change the system and which we assess and measure what students are doing. The best way to get increases in standardized scores is too cheap. (00:44:57) Either to cheat this honestly 02 cheat, honestly, that is if I'm going to be measured by how (00:45:01) well my kids do on these multiple choice things the end of this year. The best thing is to spend the whole year giving kids lots of multiple choice questions and (00:45:08) lots of ways of judging one or through a three sentences as only one state in the whole country that has a writing (00:45:14) sample for graduation. I think that's Maryland and it's very controversial there. So (00:45:19) why I teach writing I school isn't going to be measured on one of the kids can write a letter and not takes a lot of time to mock the damn papers and nobody cares after you're finished. So one of the fundamental things that we have to do is ask ourselves. What is education about now. I think it's a lot more about being able to read an editorial and talk about it being able to write a letter being able to read a timetable being able to look at it (00:45:42) advertisement which has the weekly Supermarket advertisement and figure out what your weekly groceries etcetera going to cost (00:45:54) and some of them have to be sort of open-ended (00:45:56) have to deal. Being presented with a bunch of weight with a situation where (00:46:00) you take a point of view and are able to intelligently defense. Well, there isn't a right or wrong answer most things in life don't have right or wrong answers, but it's cool. They all have writer. There's a right or wrong answer on every test. That's given (00:46:12) and what we need are more tests that that (00:46:14) engage in the kind of process that all of us engage in right here throughout this conference (00:46:18) and everyday life there is how do you look for things? How do you test ideas? How do you listen? How do you talk? How do you how do you engage this whole it what is I mean, what is the mark of an intelligent person? I mean what's kind of person you want in your discussion group or in your classes or as your colleagues or Associates to help to shape you up in the job that you're doing is not the one who does well in the standardized test now, what is it that wonder what kinds of Assessments does one (00:46:41) create? And they can be these things can be taught and they can be obsessed. There's a very good book look just (00:46:48) came out and other organization did it but I urge you all to get it or they sponsor that anybody's really terrific. There are other things out on a to sternberg's working on it. But this be on standardized testing is the booklet sponsored by the National Association of secondary school principals first, right first right stuff (00:47:05) and you can't really tell because you remember that if you restructure school that won't make any difference. If you've got the same things at the end. If you're expecting people to jump through the Hoops that you've got right now people are going to ask not how kids learn what turns them off and everything else is going to say (00:47:22) Hey, how do we get them the to handle those particular test? Sorry run over a little bit, but Let's stop and I'm sure that there will be (00:47:32) I'll get a few things thrown at me. Nothing physical, (00:47:34) please. I'm fine. Thanks (00:47:40) a couple of questions. What can I just say that that I was but Hodgkin and said here in Minnesota compared to the rest of the country you're doing very well Al Shanker said you stink. This is not not mincing words about about schools the can I just ask one question now the use the medical analogy. Medical system of the doctor gave you the wrong medicine he or she would say, I'm sorry and give you a new medicine many of us would get a second opinion or switch doctors y given, you know, why wouldn't you do the same thing here if the system is as bad as you say why not simply abandon it why is it worth even tinkering with 11 and a half percent of the kids in this state go to private school. Why not just up that percentage why wouldn't the movers and shakers? Anyway, many of whom are in this room just said the hell with it and send their own kids to private schools. Well, if I saw the private schools as a halt doing anything that we're really different than public schools, (00:48:42) that would be very appealing that is but they aren't (00:48:47) 99.9% of all private schools are doing exactly all things that I just said they take the kids in at the beginning of the year. The kids are sitting there the teacher is talking to them. They give the same test at the end of the year the using the (00:48:57) same text books that don't what (00:49:00) the only reason they're successful. Is it just like those chains of Also don't take people who are really sick those hospitals. Look they look great on the statistics, but there's no trick to taking people who are making it anyway, and then look good now I think by why I think this is a (00:49:20) challenge for for private (00:49:21) education. I mean just to jolt us all I yeah, I just wish that the (00:49:28) Japanese and their entrepreneurial Spirit would not come over and open up a school. It's like the ones in Japan because we don't have the other institution to support it. (00:49:35) But I would like to get the (00:49:39) competition from wherever it comes. (00:49:41) I want to ask question about social change. It was I don't know in 1960 and 1961 the Kennedys had a baby boy Patrick Bouvier Kennedy who died of live a couple of days in the diet of Highland membrane disease and that focused in a remarkable amount of attention on that particular disease and virtually no child dies. (00:50:03) That today, I (00:50:03) mean the medical attention was poor to that and it doesn't happen anymore. I just moved to New York City. I walked to the work a lot of the times and I terrible transportation problems in New York City people stuck in there in traffic jams for a long long time, but I see the movers and shakers in their Jaguars or whatever on the telephone it occurs to me that those people don't have any real interest in solving the transportation problem because they're they're doing their deals we use there is there you know, how do schools change I mean, do we require a cataclysmic event like the death of the President's child or is there or do we require something that will grab the movers and shakers attention their kids are probably in private school also, so I mean, what is it that is going to make something happen? Not Al Shanker saying you stink. I mean is there you understand my question? Yeah wasn't powerful and I want something strong. I mean, what will it take to make or do you believe that it that it just sort of filters up at all politics is local. No. No, I don't. I think yours is just a great question. I wish I had the (00:51:08) answer to it. Right if I did I'd stop running around the place (00:51:13) now. Seriously, I don't know we've had an institution (00:51:16) its that's been relatively unchanged for a hundred or more years. I'm not the first person to say the kinds of things that I'm saying right now. (00:51:23) There's a long tradition. I think that there are some reasons why it's more likely today that it is more (00:51:29) of a threat to some radical change (00:51:32) within the schools which will be harmful everybody there. Secondly, there are external pressures in terms of the economy, (00:51:37) which are very different However. The fact that something is the reasonable thing to do and there are threats not always make people act rationally. We still have a Merchant Marine this country today if that (00:51:49) industry act. I mean, there are a lot of places where you can see what people could see what was going to happen to them. And if they didn't change that they would die and they still didn't change and maybe hours. I don't know. (00:52:01) I (00:52:01) do not to take a nest. She's been around for that long to resist a change for that long. You can't really be optimistic about whether it's possible. You can look for certain things that are different now than they were in the past and hope I think that the pressures of the business Community. I think that certain breakthroughs in technology and in knowledge and understanding of these things, I think that the kinds of certainly the kinds of things that the bud I'm sure talked (00:52:27) about yesterday in terms of what's Happening internally and its relationship to external competition in the nation. Now whether all that gets translated into enough pressure to bring about the change I can't guarantee it might (00:52:41) I would say that if I were a betting (00:52:43) person There's a chance that that will happen but it's an uphill fight and certainly not inevitable and it's even on sort of unlikely (00:52:51) side (00:52:54) more likely as a betting person is that change continues to be resisted that there are a couple of efforts and struggles that change here and there that are not given enough support (00:53:03) and that at some point that there's some (00:53:05) sort of radical blow up and the governance of Education which has nothing to do with what actually (00:53:10) happens in classrooms and two kids, but which gives people another game to engage in (00:53:16) very much like what happened in New (00:53:17) York City. I mean, I decentralized didn't destroy the schools but schools under the centralization of basically the same as the school's they're under the centralization. It's just that you have (00:53:25) more bureaucrats and more officers and and I gave opportunities for for people of different groups to be bureaucrats, which is not unimportant in our society. It is progress. No and my name go on to become (00:53:37) legislators and stuff like that, but it didn't as far as what happens the (00:53:40) kids that didn't change it was it was a game of the different I was different. (00:53:45) I don't know the answer to it except that obviously, (00:53:47) I'm keep a schedule like this running on hoping that if people start talking in terms of their a little different my seeing it that that basically they all came in because they want to do that. (00:54:00) Most of us are doing these things because we either think that there is no other way of doing (00:54:04) it, but that's the way the kids are and we are helpless and doing it that there are very few people who've looked at it and said, we have a similar problem to what other (00:54:15) organizations have. And we need to engage in the same thought process the factory system worked in the United States for a long time. It made this country relatively (00:54:24) wealthy it made working conditions while we were the model for the whole world. All of a (00:54:29) sudden someone comes along with a system which is different way of producing things which turns out higher quality products cheaper doesn't have any natural materials doesn't have the right location doesn't have anything going except a new way of organizing things. Our schools are based on the old factory system go back and read the education in the cult of efficiency Callahan others the fact that we were modeled on a system that is now being thrown out because it is not as good as a new one now will people say aha Eureka the light bulb has just gone off. I'm now going to change. (00:55:09) No not unless they feel a threat.