Reading Jean Anyon’s What Counts as Educational Policy? Helped me to gain a better understanding of how narrow our definition of “education” has been. Before this, I hadn’t considered that educational policy wasn’t just about what happens inside classrooms with things like curriculum, teacher evaluations, or standardized testing. Anyon argues that factors like wages, housing, and employment are just as important to how students learn. She even states, “policies to eliminate poverty-wage work and housing segregation … should be part of the educational policy panoply as well."
This made me pause and reflect on my own experiences in Rhode Island schools. I’ve had friends who are exhausted from working after school jobs, or who bounce between apartments because their families can’t afford stable housing. I’ve had some who can only take night classes so as to not interfere with work. Dealing with an unstable work or home life plays a major part in someone's ability to focus in school.
The thing that upsets me the most is that our system still acts like these outside struggles don’t matter. We measure the idea of success through test scores, grades, and college admissions, while overlooking the social and economic barriers that hold many students back. In reality, schools can’t fix inequality by themselves. Without addressing deeper issues, such as affordable housing and fair wages, we’re simply asking teachers and students to fight uphill battles.
If we truly want schools to be places of equal opportunity, then education policy has to expand. That means working with communities, addressing poverty, and valuing students as whole individuals, not just test-takers. Until then, our schools risk staying stuck in the past, unable to meet the needs of the present.
I think you make a great point about us ignoring underlying issues that impact education. Part of me thinks of it as like the division of subjects Khan discussed in the Prussian model: when ideas are segmented, learners never get the chance to see how they connect. When we think of all these aspects of life as separate, we don't look at how they influence each other. Add stigma to that, and addressing the roots of problems becomes very difficult.
ReplyDeleteThis a great point, a lot of different aspects of life factor into a students success when it comes to education. If there was a solution to help the community, there is that step it is us to figure out how to take that.
ReplyDeleteHi, Luke, I totally understand your disappointing towards how the system is ignoring, or maybe trying to ignore the main issue which is "poverty" which is the job of the government that could address it by making more serious efforts, because, as you said, this has nothing to do with the schools and their staff themself, but rather, it's an external social affair..
ReplyDeleteHi luke! I love the visual you provided. It was clean, simple, and straight to the point.
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