Year End Thanks

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Dear friends,

As 2014 comes to a close, I want to express my gratitude for all the contributions to our extraordinary university. Students, alumni, their families, staff, and faculty – we all learn from one another, teach one another. There have been more than a few challenges over the last twelve months, and many, many achievements. In a world of tension and acrimony, our community has modeled the aspiration for greater inclusion, equity, creativity and purpose. There is much work to be done, and we will do it together. The boldness, rigor and practical idealism of a Wesleyan education are evident in the talent, dedication and compassion of our students, alumni, faculty, and staff. THIS IS WHY we face the future with such hope and such confidence.

With thanks, I wish you and yours health, peace, and love in 2015.

Thoughts on Future of Education as a New Year Begins

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In conjunction with the publication of Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, I’ve been having conversations with groups around the country on the future of higher education. We will continue these conversations with an event in Memorial Chapel at Wesleyan on the evening of February 3.

The assault on education has been brutal in many parts of the world — especially education for girls and women. In our own country, the effort to deny a broad, contextual education to large segments of the population is a symptom of growing economic inequality — not a viable response to it. People are afraid of education when they want to defend the status quo, or so I argued in this brief talk at the Social Good Summit in New York.

Later in the fall semester, Ruth Simmons HON ’10 and I had a public conversation at the Chicago Humanities Festival. Dr. Simmons is the former president of Smith College and Brown University, and she offers a stirring defense of the value of a college education.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/aVheQGFEzg0[/youtube]

Education makes sense when you believe in empowerment through learning. Education makes sense when you believe that inquiry and communication can lead to positive change in the world.

Now more than ever, liberal education is our cause. THIS IS WHY.

We CAN Fix our Schools!

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I was asked to review Joel Klein’s Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools, and the essay appeared this week in The Daily Beast (with a more provocative title). Klein was a controversial Chancellor of the New York City school system, and regardless of what one thinks of his tenure, his book underscores some important issues. For those of us in Higher Ed, the health of the K-12 system is vitally important. We MUST fix our schools, and with thoughtful input, political will, significant resources and a spirit of experimentation, we CAN.

 

Joel Klein hates monopolies. As a Washington attorney he took on companies that seemed immune to change, even when they were ineffective. When you’re the only game in town, you just don’t have to do things differently – even if you aren’t very good. Klein’s most famous case was against Microsoft, and he took on the tech behemoth because he believed that it was preventing competition (and innovation) by depriving consumers of choice. When companies faced competition, Klein knew, consumers would have options. Competitors would force Microsoft to change, and the public would benefit.

When asked in 2002 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run the New York City School system, Klein understood that he was being invited to take over one of the great urban monopolies. Sure, there were private schools of various sorts in New York, but given their expense, only a tiny percentage of families could ever hope to make use of them. For everybody else, public schools were the only option – and these institutions often had an abysmal record. But when you’re the only game in town, you just don’t have to change.

Mayor Bloomberg was granted unprecedented power over the school system, and he chose Klein to force schools (and their teachers and principals) to open themselves to competition in order to break a cycle of failure. Klein himself was a product of the New York City public school system, and for him it had been a haven from a harsh familial and social life. Good, caring teachers recognized his talent and challenged him to work hard to compete at the highest levels.

There were still great teachers in the system when Klein took over as Chancellor, but they were treated no differently from mediocre or even inept instructors. The result was a system not open to alternatives from the outside and with no internal incentives for innovation. Lots of people expected failure, and they got lots of it. Nearly half of fourth graders were unable to do the math expected of them, and sixty percent of high school students were dropping out before graduation. It was a mess.

But it was a mess most teachers and student families had grown accustomed to. That’s what monopolistic practices do – they create a reliance on the status quo and a fear of change. Of course some students did manage to learn, and many teachers remained devoted to the project of educating kids from highly diverse backgrounds. But, as Klein puts it, “many of those who survived in this system tended to soldier on in a state of resignation and defensiveness.”

Klein had four basic reform strategies: seize control of the old system; shut down failing schools while establishing charter schools; empower principals; jump-start innovation. Thanks to Bloomberg the first strategy was accomplished early on, and Chancellor Klein quickly took advantage of his new centralized powers. For him, it was crucial to train principals in leadership skills that would enable them to build effective teams in individual schools, or to recognize that a school failing repeatedly had to be shut down.

Closing a school, even one that doesn’t perform, is so hard because schools are key components of neighborhoods – they aren’t just private companies failing to produce what consumers want. That’s why it was so important to Klein to be able to show families that there were viable options: new schools, often charter schools, whose leaders were not beholden to traditional ways of doing things – and who got results.

The teachers union looms large in this book, often as an evil force. The union’s function is to protect its members against changes that may negatively affect their working conditions. Most frustratingly for the school Chancellor, this made it all but impossible to fire terrible teachers. In what they call the “dance of the lemons,” bad teachers (the “lemons”) would be passed from school to school, their incompetence protected through exchange. Rather than recognizing and correcting sub-par performance, the union saw its function as protecting every teacher’s employment as long as possible. From Klein’s perspective, this protection came at the expense of student learning.

Klein spends many pages describing his frustration with the teachers union, but he says little about why the organization so ferociously defends the working conditions of its members. The union’s distrust of system administrators and political appointees isn’t exactly irrational. Although Bloomberg and Klein certainly did want to reform a failing school system, for decades politicians and bureaucrats had tried to balance budgets and play politics without all that much regard to the quality of classroom instruction.

Klein’s complaint with the union is not just that it failed to recognize incompetence but also that it failed to recognize achievement. The culture of solidarity for teachers as workers prevented acknowledging some teachers as more accomplished than others. Charter schools, rejecting the tenet of promotion through seniority, promised to do better. Their principals would not only ensure that the poor instructor either improved or was fired, they would reward the talented instructor who proved effective.

“Nothing,” Klein notes, “was more threatening to the education status quo in New York City than our charter school initiative.” This was striking at the heart of the monopoly. Charter schools could offer families choices about where to send their kids, and, as word spread about their successes, “demand for them in high-poverty neighborhoods went through the roof.”

Klein paints a rosy picture of the charter schools, while admitting that not all outperformed traditional public schools. Nationally, fewer than 20% of charter schools outperform their traditional counterparts, but in New York, charters have done significantly better than that. Most importantly, from Klein’s perspective, they opened the system to competition, and competition should in the long run lead to experimentation and innovation.

Innovation is the fourth his reform strategies. In order to know what innovations work, you have to have good information on how effective your practices are. In schools, this meant finding new ways to evaluate students – and hence their teachers. Testing is Klein’s royal road to innovation through accountability, although he insists that there isn’t a choice between testing and teaching. You can, he’s convinced, have both joined in a “positive cycle of competence.” These are buzzwords. You don’t learn to become a better teacher by giving your students more tests. Klein is less interested in discussing how teachers can continue to educate themselves to become better professionals; on this score, Elizabeth Green’s recent Building a Better Teacher is a useful supplement.

“As long as seniority reigns among teachers,” Klein writes, “we will fail.” The culture of promotion through seniority kills creativity and effectiveness. Just look at Congress. We need true accountability. But effective school leaders don’t just punish bad teachers and reward good ones. Effective educational leadership creates opportunities for professional teachers to become more successful by sharing with them practices that work and helping them shed those that don’t. As Klein acknowledges, “making curriculum more demanding without giving teachers the help required for them to deliver it effectively isn’t a winning strategy.” This is why as Chancellor, he opened innovation zones for experimentation: to discover better pedagogical techniques.

Like so many others, Klein has come to believe that it is technology that will bring pedagogical transformation. After finishing his term as Chancellor, he joined Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, where he has been focusing on developing technological tools for teachers to personalize (and track) learning. This is a growing business arena, a market attracting lots of players. How effective the outcomes will be remains to be seen.

Joel Klein hates monopolies, but he really loves the private sector. He is convinced that the most powerful way to combat poverty and promote accomplishment is by opening traditional structures to competition and new ideas. This doesn’t necessarily mean privatization because there will still be ways for communities to retain local input if not control. But it will, in effect, be privatization if the profits of large corporations rather than the needs of neighborhoods determine what gets counted as good teaching and learning.

Lessons of Hope is often a compelling account of how determined leadership can remove obstacles to change, and he offers a strong defense of his work as an effective leader of reform. But it is too early to tell if the changes he helped unleash will prove sustainable, or if they will broadly serve our citizenry. Klein does know that today it surely isn’t enough to “save our schools,” as many chant. We need to “fix our schools,” even while recognizing that our efforts thus far are only works-in-progress. Without spaces for innovation, our students will be stuck without choices and with little hope for change. In the end, Klein underscores that education depends on hope, on the possibility for improving one’s life through learning. That’s a lesson for all of us.

 

Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools. Harper. $27.99

Why They Attack Schools

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I posted this on HuffingtonPost yesterday.

 

Yesterday’s horrific news came from Pakistan. Taliban militants stormed a school in Peshawar, killing at least 145. Children were gunned down in their classrooms, or as they attempted to flee. Teachers and other staff members were murdered in cold blood.

Several months ago we watched in horror as Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds of girls from a school in Nigeria. As a worldwide campaign demanded to “bring our girls home,” the terrorists expanded the diabolical domain of their cruelties. Most of the girls are still far, far from home.

This week we observe the anniversary of the shootings in Newtown Connecticut that killed 27. The revulsion at the time energized some to demand stronger gun control laws, at least universal background checks. And efforts were made to improve mental health services. Most of the work failed to result in legislation as outrage faded to apathy (and worse) among politicians.

Since Newtown there have been somewhere between 75 and 100 shootings at American schools. Many of these were acts of violence not directed at the schools or students per se, but CNN still concluded that 15 of the incidents were similar to Newtown or Oregon — a minor or adult actively shooting inside or near a school. One school shooting every five weeks. CNN breaks down the kinds of shootings here.

Of course, there are shootings at plenty of other locations, and the motivations of the Taliban attacking a military school are very different than those of a mentally ill young man who attacks an elementary school.

But the fact that these murders occur at schools increases their visibility, and intensifies our own revulsion at the destruction of innocent lives.

Why are schools and universities the scenes of such violence? Is it because schools, with all their problems, remain for us places of hope and optimism? Places of education are spaces for people who still believe in possibilities for positive change. We send our children to school because we hope that they will learn about themselves and the world in ways that will enable them to thrive – not just to navigate more effectively but also to flourish.

We look to colleges and universities to empower students to support themselves, to be sure, but also to make meaningful contributions to their communities. We invest so much time, treasure and emotion in our educational institutions because through them we hope to build cultures of learning, of inquiry, of appreciation and engagement. Schools face the future; violence cuts the future off.

Attacks on schools are meant to undermine our core values and our belief in the possibilities for a better future. When we defend education from violence, we reaffirm our faith in the power of learning to combat destruction and to create meaning.

Malala Yousafzai, the teenage Nobel laureate put it this way: “Innocent children in their school have no place for horror such as this.” She went on to say: “I, along with millions of others around the world, mourn these children, my brothers and sisters — but we will never be defeated.”

Schools represent hope grounded in learning. They represent a culture’s aspiration to enhance individual potential and to build in students a capacity for living fuller, more meaningful lives in concert with others. Attacks at schools are attacks on this aspiration.

May the memory of those killed at schools inspire us to defend our hopes for learning beyond the threat of violence.

 

College Should Prepare You For Life

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During Thanksgiving week The New Republic published this short essay of mine on the “education of the whole person.” Since then, the owner of the magazine opted to create a integrated media company rather than a magazine of ideas. This is a sad event for American journalism and for thoughtful discussions in the public sphere, regardless of what one thinks of the specific positions of the magazine. 

 

As the college admissions season moves into high gear, I’ve been talking with many stressed-out young people deciding what kinds of schools they should apply to.  As president of a university dedicated to liberal education, I urge them to consider college not just as a chance to acquire particular expertise but as a remarkable opportunity to explore their individual and social lives in connection to the world in which they will live and work.

Contentious debates over the benefits—or drawbacks—of broad, integrative learning, liberal learning, are as old as America itself. Several of the founding fathers saw education as the road to independence and liberty. A broad commitment to inquiry was part of their dedication to freedom. But critics of education also have a long tradition. From Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth-century to today’s Internet pundits, they have attacked its irrelevance and elitism—often calling for more vocational instruction.

Ben Franklin probably would have had some sympathy for the anti-college message: “You don’t need colleges. Go off and learn stuff on your own. You believe you are an innovator? You can prove it without the sheepskin. You want to start a successful company? You don’t need permission from out-of-touch professors.” From Tom Paine to Steve Jobs, stories of people with the smarts and chutzpah to educate themselves in their own ways have long resonated with Americans.

But Franklin was also dismissive of the arrogant display of parochialism. He would be appalled by the current mania for driving young people into narrower and narrower domains in the name of “day one” job preparedness. He would surely recognize that when industrial and civic leaders call for earlier and earlier specialization, they are putting us on a path that will make Americans even less capable citizens and less able to adjust to changes in the world of work.

Citizens able to see through political or bureaucratic doubletalk are also workers who can defend their rights in the face of the rich and powerful. Education protects against mindless tyranny and haughty privilege. Liberal learning in our tradition isn’t only training; it’s an invitation to think for oneself. For generations of Americans, literate and well-rounded citizens were seen as essential to a healthy republic. Broadly educated citizens aren’t just collections of skills—they are whole people. For today’s critics, often speaking the lingo of Silicon Valley sophistication, however, a broad, contextual education is merely wasted—non-monetized—schooling.

It’s no wonder that in a society characterized by radical income inequality, anxiety about getting that first job will lead many to aim for the immediate needs of the marketplace right now. The high cost of college and the ruinous debt that many take on only add to this anxiety. In this context, some assert that education should simply prepare people to be consumers, or, if they are talented enough, “innovators.” But when the needs of the market change, as they surely will, the folks with that narrow training will be out of luck. Their bosses, those responsible for defining market trends, will be just fine because they were probably never confined to an ultra-specialized way of doing things. Beware of critics of education who cloak their desire to protect privilege (and inequality) in the garb of educational reform.

“If we make money the object of man-training,” W.E.B. Dubois wrote at the beginning of the twentieth-century, “we shall develop money makers but not necessarily men.” He went on to describe how “intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life.” A good pragmatist, DuBois knew that through education one developed modes of thinking that turned into patterns of action. As William James taught, the point of learning is not to arrive at truths that somehow match up with reality. The point of learning is to acquire better ways of coping with the world, better ways of acting.

Pragmatic liberal education in America aims to empower students with potent ways of dealing with the issues they will face at work and in life. That’s why it must be broad and contextual, inspiring habits of attention and critique that will be resources for students years after graduation. In order to develop this resource, teachers must address the student as a whole person—not just as a tool kit that can be improved. We do need tools, to be sure, but American college education has long invited students to learn to learn, creating habits of independent critical and creative thinking that last a lifetime.

In the nineteenth century, Emerson urged students to “resist the vulgar prosperity that retrogrades ever to barbarism.” He emphasized that a true education would help one find one’s own way by expanding one’s world, not narrowing it: notice everything but imitate nothing, he urged. The goal of this cultivated attentiveness is not to discover some ultimate Truth, but neither is it just to prepare for the worst job one is likely to ever have, one’s first job after graduation.

Instead, the goal of liberal education is, in John Dewey’s words, “to free experience from routine and caprice.” This goal will make one more effective in the world, and it will help one continue to grow as a whole person beyond the university. This project, like learning itself, should never end.

Black Lives Matter March

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We are preparing for finals, writing exams, grading them…. These are important things. But all around the country people are speaking out against the outrageous injustices that people of color face on a regular basis. We must acknowledge these issues. The time to speak out is now.

The following notice appeared on the faculty list-serve tonight.

On Monday, December 8th, at 3 pm, students of Wesleyan University will be marching in response to the police brutality and systemic racism that led to the deaths of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and countless other people of color in recent times. The state must be held accountable for the prejudicial treatment of these individuals. Our movement must start from the ground-up. I am emailing you to ask for your support and solidarity, and invite you to march alongside us students for this cause. We will be gathering at Exley Science Center at 265 Church St.

At Wesleyan we affirm that we are an institution that values boldness, rigor and practical idealism. One doesn’t have to be an idealist to recognize that change is necessary, and that we must demand it.

Join us. This is Why.

 

Let the Music Play as Classes End

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On this last day of classes, the campus is really singing. Tonight the Wesleyan Spirits will hold their annual Fall Jam in Memorial Chapel. The concert begins at 8 p.m.  Rumor has it that some alumni spirits may float in…

If a cappella isn’t your thing, but you like to move your feet, you may want to check out Contra Dance in Beckham Hall — also at 8 p.m. And if you like to watch other people move their feet, there’s the Dance Department’s Winter Concert in the CFA Theater (also at 8).

At 9 p.m. in the World Music Hall, students of David Behrman, visiting assistant professor of music, will be performing their new compositions. Professor Behrman has been making experimental musical for more than 40 years, and he has inspired students throughout that time.

Finally, tonight (9-12 p.m.) is the last Late Night Music of the Week for the Semester! Featuring….Thread Count  Here’s what the organizers say:

ThreadCount is Wesleyan’s premier R&B Fusion Band. Comprised of your favorite jammers on campus, ThreadCount has everything you need for a fun and funkadelic night. Come out and enjoy the vibes as we perform originals and covers spanning Rock&Roll, Rap, R&B, Soul and Jazzy influences. You don’t want to miss this!

Tonight, Friday December 5! 9 p.m. – midnight West Dining Bay, Usdan

Musical catharsis before reading and finals week!

 

 

Outrage Takes our Breath Away

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Yesterday I was in New York for Wesleyan meetings and was shocked when the grand jury there decided not to indict the police officer who killed Eric Garner with a chokehold. The streets were filled with folks demanding justice. The death was ruled a homicide, and through a video we could all witness the horrible attack on an African American man, who just asks to be left alone. Yet, the officer said he didn’t intend to hurt Eric Garner, and that seems to have been enough for the jurors.

Charles Blow put it this way in a column this morning:

Racism is interpersonal and structural; it is current and historical; it is explicit and implicit; it is articulated and silent.

Biases are pervasive, but can also be spectral: moving in and out of consideration with little or no notice, without leaving a trace, even without our own awareness. Sometimes the only way to see bias is in the aggregate, to stop staring so hard at a data point and step back so that you can see the data set. Only then can you detect the trails in the dust. Only then can the data do battle with denial.

Our desire to live in a world without racism, without prejudice and brutal bigotry, shouldn’t blind us to the realities of oppression all around us. Let this desire energize us to make change, to not only alleviate suffering but to fight injustice. Education should help us acknowledge the realities in the world — not simply to accept them.

Education should empower us to change the world. To make it a place where all can breathe more freely.

Support Financial Aid on Giving Tuesday

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Holidays focus our attention. We may be grateful during various times of the year, but on Thanksgiving many of us really focus on what we are thankful for. At our house, I ask each person at dinner to say a few words about what inspires her or his gratitude. Sure, I get my share of eye rolling — in some moods, taking a moment to say out loud what we appreciate and are grateful for feels pretty odd. But once we get in the rhythm, I think, it feels pretty good.

For a long time here in America we have liked to attach commercial transactions to our holidays. Why not have a sale, or some other special event to get folks out and shopping. Although I righteously stayed away from stores on Friday (phobia more than virtue, actually), I have to admit that I was online Monday, looking for some of those cyber deals. But today presents an opportunity for a different kind of transaction.

Today, December 2, is Giving Tuesday. The brainchild of Henry Timms, now director of the 92nd St Y, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving has become recognized as a special day to act philanthropically. People all over the world are going to make donations to their favorite causes. Why not join in this campaign to take a pause from the momentum of the commercial to give a gift to a not-for-profit organization?

Here at Wesleyan, we have a special opportunity on Giving Tuesday. When the Wesleyan community reaches its goal of 1,000 gifts on Giving Tuesday, Catherine Klema P’13 and trustee David Resnick ’81, P’13 will establish a scholarship for an incoming frosh in the class of 2019. All the gifts given to financial aid on December 2 will add to this scholarship and help fund four years of Wes for this new student.

We know that lots of people aren’t able to make big gifts, but we are hopeful that many, many people will support our students with donations that suit their budgets. Please join the campaign to increase financial aid.

GIVE NOW

 

Thank you in advance for your support of Wesleyan’s students on Giving Tuesday – Because a Wesleyan Education is Our Cause.

You know why.

This is Why.

 

Question Authority: Recognize Race

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For many of us the Thanksgiving break was marred by the news from Ferguson Missouri. In an extraordinary grand jury proceeding, atypical in so many ways, nine citizens decided not to bring charges against the police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown. I am not in a position (and neither are readers of this blog) to describe what really happened in Ferguson that day, but we can let this event shine a bright light on more systemic issues of how African Americans are treated by law enforcement. Of course, how one looks at these issues will be affected by one’s own experience or race and power. As sociologist Michael Eric Dyson recently wrote: “The instrument through which one perceives race — one’s culture, one’s experiences, one’s fears and fantasies — alters in crucial ways what it measures.”

When Wesleyan students protest the grand jury’s decision today and in the coming weeks, they will be protesting not just this event but the foundational injustice that results in mass incarceration, and radically different police tactics for blacks and whites in this country. Of course, there will be those who mock privileged college students protesting decisions made in very different communities far from the campus bubble. Why are students protesting events that they can’t affect? Are they just being politically correct?

No, students raise their voices in protest to express their desire for a different kind of world. They come together to march, shout and sing to rediscover feelings of solidarity in hopes that the world can be otherwise. Recognizing racism’s pernicious effects is part of imagining a different kind of world.

At Wesleyan we have a long history of supporting student engagement, recognizing racism and promoting equity and inclusion. But of course, things are far from perfect at alma mater. For me, this sometimes results in the paradoxical situation of being asked to support protests against the administration (and its president!). Be that as it may, we can be proud of students (and faculty and staff) expressing their concerns and advocating for change whether we agree with their specific goals or not.

Part of a liberal education is learning to become a full citizen, learning to participate in the public sphere. In order for this to really work, we need diversity — of identity, of interests, of points of view. Intellectual or political homogeneity is an enemy of education, as is blindness to how our own “instruments of perception” might be marinated in prejudice. This is yet another reason why recruiting students from diverse backgrounds is key to the learning environment we create. We don’t want political correctness, but we very much want insightful political engagement.

And we are fortunate to have that engagement at Wesleyan.