Competition

TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 201

I suspect we all have a competitive streak, and I think it is a remnant from our distant past when survival depended upon subduing other species if not our own. Current prevailing educational philosophy is rife with the seeds of competition. School labels based on performance are at their heart competitive, as are merit pay plans, competitive grants, schools of choice, etc. Perhaps these initiatives were initiated by well meaning folks who actually believe that competition is healthy in public schools. Perhaps not. (My deepest believe is that folks who resent public schools and what they stand for in our democracy, are the folks who promote the installation of private sector motivators in the public sector, and that their motives are no where near altruistic.) Regardless of the motive, the result is devastating and needs to be abandoned quickly.

Ask parents of more than one child if it is healthy to instill competition. They will tell you that the competitive streak exists and that it takes a great deal of effort to get to a spirit of cooperation, sharing, and collaboration among their kids. Those behaviors must be taught and must be learned. Pity the child who grew up feeling loved less, cared for less, beneficiary of less than a sibling. I do not think love is performance based. I think families, churches and schools are institutions grounded in the spirit of universal caring, forgiveness, support, cooperation and the motivation to survive and thrive dependent on the others within the group.

And herein is the sticking point: the private sector, businesses, capitalism, free enterprise, et. al. exists in a competitive world, or at least that is the argument. (I have always been amused as I observed companies on the brink of "losing" rapidly turning to the public sector for help. It appears they want to compete as long as they are winning, argue for unencumbered free enterprise as long as they are winning, and rapidly line up at the public trough as soon as they are not.) To argue that a legitimate school improvement effort is to instill competition in schools and between schools is equivalent to arguing the same strategy will work in churches, families and communities. Once again I say, Poppycock and Balderdash.

Teaching kids is so tough it cannot be accomplished alone. Even the most successful teachers, prone to retreat to their classrooms and isolate, are quick to call on a principal when the copy machine breaks, the angry parent gets threatening, the central office messed up their paycheck, or a given child is totally disruptive in class. The real hope for public schools does not lie in competition, it lies in collaboration.

We have two inherently different systems at work in the US. Democracy, which espouses equality of rights, protection of the weak from the strong, civil liberties and the individual pursuit of happiness; and Capitalism which espouses high performers deserve more, should earn more, should be better off than others, and should somehow merit the status of cultural icon. I will argue that all that has made us great as a nation is grounded in collaboration, not competition. We were blessed with an abundance of natural resources (and don't even think about getting me going on what we have done with those in the name of capitalism) and a willing and able workforce who came here as immigrants. In fact, one could argue that we were originally populated by those who were economic losers elsewhere, else wise, why would they have left? Once here, those folks worked together to accomplish much. Every wagon train West was a cooperative endeavor, every barn that was raised was a cooperative endeavor, every school and every church that was built was a cooperative endeavor. The same is not true today.

We continue to have de facto segregation for the purpose of winning in some remote competition. Private schools exist, I pose, to establish a homogeneous mix of students based on ethnicity or belief. Folks who fear mingling with the messy masses want out for their kids, and if they have the means, extract their kids from public school to achieve that segregation. Private schools are the new Native American Reservations in reverse. Many policy makers would establish such schools, call them Charter schools and use tax dollars to fund them.

No, the answer is not for schools to compete, for teachers to compete. The answer lies in sharing and collaboration. I turn again to the medical model. What if a doctor, a hospital, a drug company, and medical technology company discovered or evolved a treatment that would help all the infirm who suffer from some particular diagnoses, but withheld that knowledge for just a few. That is not what happens. When a medical breakthrough is achieved, it is shared. I know those who patent the breakthrough are financially rewarded, and I do not have a problem with that. The knowledge, is shared.

If someone discovers a strategy, an approach, a sequence, a delivery method that will help kids learn, it is critical that the knowledge be shared. The very best teacher on each campus must share his or her own best practices with others, they must serve as mentors. Set up a competitive environment, and that stops. Teachers are paid so poorly that if I've got knowledge that works and can earn extra money by keeping that knowledge to myself, no one wins save the kids in my charge. That's not moral. Hence, merit pay is not moral. Hence, competitive grants to fund schools who have a plan for success that remains unshared is not moral. Penicillin should be available to all. So should academic success.

There are more gifted children in India than there are children in the US. We have enough external educational and industrial competition as it is without embedding any in and between schools and teachers. If we Race to the Top, most will lose and a few will win. If we all target the summit and work together, most can get there.