Back To School

The Labor Day weekend traditionally is a seasonal milestone - and the end of this year’s holiday weekend also marks the return of The Mexican Intellectual following a summertime hiatus.  Labor Day also usually marks the return to classes for American school children, which provides an opportune moment to take a closer look at those students and consider how best to teach them.

America’s school systems aim to meet the educational needs of an ever increasingly diverse student population.  A cursory examination of available data from 2011 about the city of Chicago (from where this blog originates) and the nearby village of Winnetka provides some insights into not only how diverse the student population is, but also the degrees and types of disparity between districts within the same state of Illinois.

The table below shows percentages of the three largest racial or ethnic populations in Illinois schools along with the percentages of students who are of Limited English Proficiency or bilingual (LEP); who have Individual Educational Programs (IEP) that provide for students with physical or mental disabilities to receive accommodations or additional resources, and who come from households that meet the federal designation of Low Income and thus are eligible for federally subsided or free lunch programs.  (You can find more details about Chicago Public Schools here, and more about the Winnetka school district here.)  With such diversity, the question arises: How can we best teach our students?

Student Demographics	%White	% African American	% Hispanic	% LEP	% IEP	% Low Income
State-wide	51.4	18.3	23.0	8.8	14	48.1
Chicago	8.8	41.6	44.1	15.81	12.23	85.92
Winnetka	92.8	0.1	1.7	1.0	12.3	0.2

For better or for worse, there is no shortage of supply of vested parties or other interest groups who think they have the best answer to that question.  These include parents; residents without school-aged children; labor unions for the diverse workforces within the schools (in addition to teachers there are teacher aides, facilities and housekeeping, administration, and administrative support staff, to name a few); corporations; academics; non-profit organizations; private foundations; and local, state, and national politicians.

Given the cultural and learning diversity of student populations allow me to suggest that the question itself is misguided.  There is no one best way to teach our children, just as there is no one solution to the problems with American education, whether they be real or perceived.  Unfortunately, those claiming to be interested in reforming education seem to lock onto the most politically expedient solution.

That question of how best to teach students is not answered solely by reforming teacher education; by corporate-sponsored curricula; by school take-overs and other efforts to privatize public schools; by accountability through test scores; or by any one reform being pushed as a “magic bullet.”  Instead, we should be discussing the best ways (plural) to teach students or reform schools.  Given the ever increasing diversity of student populations, the methods of educating them should be no less diverse.