Hi! It’s me again… I’m just wondering about how we can save the education system

Today we visited Fé y Alegría which is a charter school. It is a much better version of a charter school than those we read about for today. In the readings, they explain how low-fee schools seemed to be a solution to problems in the Peruvian education system but have actually become more of a problem. Throughout Peru there has been an insane (FYI Figure 4 doesn’t have numbers, so I’m just going to stick with the term insane) amount of private schools that have been founded since 2004.

I consider myself a fairly educated person at this point, I mean I have had 4 years of college! Therefore, I think it would be alright to justify my assumption that Peru is continuing to start more and more low-fee schools throughout their country because they are working so well. Ehhhh. Nope. But don’t feel bad if you had the same thought cross your mind too; it’s basically common sense. The way I see it is that if something is making a difference in the school system by improving the student scores and performance then by all means, keep it going. On the other hand, if it doesn’t work we should probably not be repeating the same mistake. In the article The Default Privatization of Peruvian Education and the Rise of Low-fee Private Schools, the author criticizes privatization of public education by claiming that it is not a solution by any means. Instead, it continues “intensifying educational segregation while misleadingly capitalizing on the hopes and dreams of the poor” (page 3). The reason that these charter schools are still in business comes down to out of necessity, not choice. This study had a lot of information, but what I found to be the most important is what the parents of students at these schools had to say. Their only reasons for going to the charter schools were because they were closer and the teachers would actually teach. The teachers of the public schools did not teach due to the long months spent being on strike and their need to take on other jobs because being a teacher didn’t pay enough.

Today in seminar we talked about the different types of schools in America, and how publicly funded schools and privately funded schools differentiate. Within charter schools there are two divisions, instrumental charter schools or non-instrumental charter schools. Instrumental charter schools have teacher unions, so they answer to the district administration they just have more freedom on how you run the school. All public schools have teacher unions due to the fact that teacher unions benefit the teachers by helping them earn better pay and have better conditions to teach in. As a result, they are happier teachers which means the students will be happier students. There are then non-instrumental charter schools who are not unionized. We didn’t go into as much depth as to how things work in Peru, but it seems to me that things are kind of backwards. The public school teachers do not have unions that work collectively towards better pay and teaching conditions, this causes the teachers to strike or take on more jobs than they can handle. They then fail to teach their students and all of this becomes a GIGANTIC waste of everyone’s time. Then in come the low-fee schools with teachers that have better salaries and expectations that they will be present for class. The article Public Education Is Up for Salesaid it best when they wrote, “A quarter century after privatization began in earnest, it is clear that its main effect has been to undermine the public schools.” What this really means for a parent is that the choice is pretty much made for you. Such a shame due to the fact that the teachers and administration of the low-fee schools are, for the most part, unqualified and unfit. So the students and teacher may both be in the classroom, but that doesn’t mean that there is intellectual learning going on. Clearly we see where the problems are in the low-fee schools and the public schools, it comes down to whichever is the lesser of two evils.

Walking into Fé y Alegría this morning was quite the experience! There was a huge open courtyard, someone was making a colorful poster with sparkly sticker letters on it. There were computer rooms, science labs, even sewing machines! I don’t have that much backstory on this school but what I do know is that it has public funding but private administration. I was pretty shocked that all of his was publicly funded but I mean, what do I know?! Bottom line, it was a beautiful school. Our seminar didn’t take place until a few hours after our visit, so I had a lot of time to think about the contrast between my great personal experience and the conclusions of both articles. It’s now 9:30 pm and after further evaluation I have finally come up with a conclusion; it’s what works best for the individual.

We had a fairly busy day today, consisting of Spanish class, a visit to Colegio Roosevelt (an international school $$$) and then seminar. So Roosevelt was like awe inspiringly perfect in every way… except for the fact that half of Peru has nothing and this school has a few 3D printers, 27 acres of land, and computers as far as the eye could see. Making this the most extra school I have EVER visited. For homework we read a paragraph of a book called The Global Achievement Gapin which the author believes that a quality school is a school that teaches seven specific skills: critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration across networks and learning by influence, agility and adaptability, initiative and entrepreneurialism, effective communication, effective oral and written communication, and accessing and analyzing information and curiosity and imagination. According to the author, this school is a quality school because it definitely provides opportunities for its students to learn all of these schools. But is that enough? Let’s ask my dear old friends Kantor and Lowe who wrote Reflection on History and Quality of Education. On page two they wrote, “If quality education is taken to mean a structured curriculum taught by engaged, engaging, and well-educated teachers in schools committed to the promotion of intellectual development, we simply cannot locate much of it in the past” (p2). Clearly we have two different thought processes going on, and according to Kantor and Lowe Roosevelt doesn’t really meet the criteria for a quality school.

After some great discussion during seminar we came to the conclusion that Kantor and Lowe believed that a quality school prepares its students for going out into the job force. I don’t know if these students will be ready for what life throws at them, but I do believe that it is important to look at how SEA provided education to people that migrated to Lima. During Felix’s presentation, he mentioned that the Jesuits would help provide popular education. This meant plumbing, electricity, and social consciousness that helped people get jobs! Wait a second, another problem has arisen (In education?? Really??). Now it is Toni, the author of the book who wouldn’t qualify this form of education as quality education.

By the end of this blog I was hoping to have solved all of the problems within the education system, both in Peru as well as in the US. Looks like I couldn’t figure it out quite yet. What I have discovered is that not a single person, not even myself, has the best definition of quality education because it’s just not that simple. That doesn’t mean that we should stop analyzing, criticizing, and applying what we have learned to the world around us. In fact, we should do the opposite, we should keep striving to make that definition, to help our students, and to create a healthy school environment for all