Abraham Lincoln was the first president to speak on the topic of public education.  He did not form a federal educational plan, but he put forth the ideal that every American should have access to “a moderate education, and thereby be able to read the histories of his own and other countries.”  This statement became the catalyst for the educational system we now have.  Since the time of Lincoln, many presidents have made judgments on education and set into motion practices and policies that have both bettered and condemned the system – none so treacherous a debacle as No Child Left Behind.

For those who are not familiar, NCLB was signed into law by G. W. Bush.  Lobbied into the billions of dollars, it should come as no surprise that the biggest portions of the bill’s funding came from companies that would produce and score the standardized tests.  It was just the first step in a decade long waltz intended to undermine and dismantle public education.

Before I was a full-time mother, I was a full-time teacher.  I got my degrees from a school just outside of Philadelphia that is known for its superior Education program.  During those years, I worked in some of the best and worst schools in the nation.  The dichotomy of school districts in and around Philadelphia tell a story about public education in America – a story about wealth versus poverty, about parents more than students, a story that outlines in near bullet point format all that is wrong with public education, and a story that is about to take a turn toward tragedy.

It is no secret that wealthy school districts produce successful students and low-income districts are characterized by low-performance.  The guise of NCLB was that it was going to “level the playing field,” channeling more money into low-income districts and using tests to discover which teachers were not up to par.  The trouble – well, one of the many, many troubles – with the test is that it completely and totally ignores the countless social and cultural problems low-income districts face.

I did my student-teaching in Philadelphia school district.  I was placed in the most densely populated school in the city.  My students weren’t dumb or lazy, and they were – in theory – capable of passing “the test.”  Unfortunately, my students were hungry, angry, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, non-identified students with “exceptionalities” (“disability”), and far more focused on the father who was in jail, the mother who beat them, and the drug-dealers on the corner they walked past to get home than they could ever be on the base-10 number system.

Meanwhile, in districts like Lower Merion and Tredyffrin-Easttown, not only do the districts have a ton of money but so do Mommy and Daddy.  Breakfast was made by the live-in Nanny and piping hot 30 minutes before the bus stopped at their doorstep.  Any emotional disruption was handled by the child psychologist during their monthly visit.  Tutors were readily available.  And, not only were all special services diligently looked after by both parents and educators, but even average students had relentless advocates.  In fact, if I had a nickel for every time I or a colleague was “spoken to” by a parent about an assignment or grade, I could’ve out-earned the cushy retirement package my freshman year.  Failure was not an option… even if a student actually failed.

You see, what standardized tests embrace is that every student is capable of learning – which I believe wholeheartedly.  What the tests suggest is that the only factor in students’ ability to learn is how well they are being taught – which is completely inaccurate; and what they totally ignore is everything that happens in a child’s life and psyche other than textbook learning – which is most of his life experience.

What’s more, NCLB doesn’t apply the test to measure student success or teacher failure.  The application of the test and its scores end up more a threat.  If the students fail to perform, there are consequences… and they aren’t constructive or pretty.  Sure, they say that the funding kicks in to provide extra services but when you compare the funding to the cost of test (which is covered by the districts) schools barely break even.  The services are far more expensive than any check has ever been large, and they take time – in most cases years – to yield improvement, especially when they are educational services that fail to address the real problems in failing schools (see paragraph five).

Schools that fail to show the necessary improvement with the addition of limited and underfunded services and within the limited time frame then move into the deeper stages of intervention (more aptly: penalty).  As the years progress, teachers are fired, then administrators are fired, and as districts struggle to rehire, reeducate, and recover from these staffing shuffles, the clock runs out.  That is when the districts are taken over by larger political circles.  After all, adding bureaucrats and politicians to a quagmire always clears things right up.

Once the politicians have their greasy hands on these districts, things inevitably go from bad to worse, as they did in Chester (PA) and are about to in Philadelphia.

With the state’s incapable of remote-managing these failing districts, repeated cuts to educational funding by state officials, and the false promise of charter school’s pillaging them for millions of dollars, the districts begin to fall apart.  More and more money is siphoned off, much to charter schools that consistently fail to deliver better student performance (but are still put on the Presidential pedestal) and the rest to private companies circling the state’s education departments like hungry vultures.  These companies peddle everything from textbooks to food to entire curriculums – most of which promote corporate agendas through propaganda.

During my days in Philadelphia, I witnessed the signing of a multi-million dollar contract with Aramark, a corporate food distribution company.  The contract was signed mid-year and paid out about $14 million to install complex computer-style cash registers in elementary school cafeterias.  Meanwhile, teachers bought their own staples and copier paper, and a 10-year-old boy in my second grade class who couldn’t read met for less than an hour once every two weeks with a special education teacher that the district couldn’t afford to bring in full-time.  This is the decay that is rotting public education, and when the system becomes so fragmented, so broke, so broken, and so far beyond salvage, they cut another multi-million dollar check for some firm in a far off city to brainstorm and fix the problem.  Their solution?  The for-profit model.

What left Chester County schools in shambles, a district where teachers have been working without compensation since October, is now being proposed in Philadelphia: more money to charters and corporations, closing schools, selling the remaining schools to educational corporations, and hiring a firm to remote-manage the entire process.

This is the result of NCLB.  This is what came from a test that was ill-conceived, ill-advised, ill-applied, and sold as the promise of better education.

When Lincoln brainstormed the possibility of a nation-wide public education system, he understood that education needed to be localized.  He rightly believed that only the people who lived in the community could accurately understand and tackle what knowledge and challenges students in those areas would require and contend with.  He also believed that those responsible for the children would have their best interests at heart, a fact which hasn’t changed.

Granted, the world has become “flat” but in that flatness the horizon that educators gaze upon has become quite broad, and if anyone has the vision to take education into the next millennia, it’s educators.  So, why hasn’t anyone thought to turn to these skilled, educated, dedicated people and ask them what their schools need?  Why are they being shut out of the conversation?  Why is it assumed that a team of trouble-shooters in a high-rise 500 miles away will know better than the people on the ground?  Simple: because denying the obvious ends in dollar signs.

Like countless other things – the expansion of the military industrial complex with the end of the draft, the appointment of former CEOs to head federal agencies of conflicted interest (Monsanto execs to the USDA, chemical execs to the EPA, etc.), the farming of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans to predatory banks – education has become the next great market… poor schools first.

Tonight, in Philadelphia, the School Reform Commission (the only thing pertaining to Philadelphia’s schools that the state has managed to adequately fund) had a public meeting to announce their plan for Philly’s public schools.  It is expected to follow the Chester model… right down the toilet.  Though the meeting was “public,” police were posted at all the stairwells and elevators, prohibiting hundreds of teachers and thousands of protesters from entering.  While I have yet to hear the verdict, I am not hopeful.  In fact, I’m already depressed.

Watching the blatant dismemberment of a public school district is – for me – the equivalent of watching someone rip pieces of the Constitution to use it for toilet paper.  Where is the justice for these students?  What is the future for those who have been sold by their elected officials and educated by corporations?  And where is the line between those schools and the one my own children will attend?

Well, that last question has a simple answer, doesn’t it?

That line in a township line.  Better tighten my belt and trim my budget.  I’ve got to make ends meet and stay on the wealthy side, because a quality education just became a class privilege.