Alanna on “teacher powered schools”

I presume that none of the candidates for school board this year will be led around by the nose by any of today’s currently disgraced factions. That certainly will be the situation of my old student Alanna Oswald. She knows I’m human and she knows because she sat through two years of my classes. Besides, I’m a lousy Svengali. Its galling to hear that some folks are saying she will be Art and Harry’s tool. Not hardly, she already made her independence clear when she was interviewed by the Tribune’s editors no matter how uncomprehending the editors were.

I wrote Alanna an email three or four weeks ago urging her to read an NPR story on “5 Big Ideas That Don’t Work In Education.” I then went on to explain how, like her, I ran for the board back in the 1990’s to give teachers more autonomy. Sadly, that’s when the nation’s politicians decided to stick their noses into public schools and made teaching prescriptive while putting teachers on a short leash as though they were no more than an organ grinder’s Capuchin monkey.

Alanna wrote back to debate me and shared her own view of teacher powered schools. After I read it I told her that this was exactly why we needed her on the School Board. Skipping the debate part here what she wrote me:

From: “Alanna Oswald”
To: “Harry Welty”
Cc: “ajohnston2@charter.net”
Sent: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 13:36:44 -0500
Subject: Re: FW: NPR.org – 5 Big Ideas That Don’t Work In Education

The idea of teacher empowered schools is not letting the teachers do what they want. I’ll put it like this:

Teacher powered schools use a teacher led decision making team. The administrator is there to carry out what the team decides. The administrator is not there to hover over, punish, reprimand, scold, or evaluate other teachers’s performances. The administrator is there to deliver what the teachers need to succeed. There is trust. There is team building. There is cohesion. There is no power authority structure. It is truly a team environment. If one fails, everyone fails, and it isn’t just one person’s fault. There is no blame to pass around.

Our current system is a top-down punishment, pass the buck system. The low guy on the pole always gets it handed to them and squashed in the process. I think this is a concept that Community Schools are trying to emulate, but trying to do it while holding on to the power structure and remain top down. This is why it won’t meet its potential. And that’s what it needs to change to make it truly successful.