The team that produced a documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth” that helped generate widespread desire to do something about climate change has created a new documentary, “Waiting for Superman” that could well do the same for the American public education system. The film highlights some depressing facts, especially the failure of so many public schools but it also shows that there are many good schools and excellent teachers doing great work. The film recognises that many efforts have been made to reform the system, some of them very promising, but it makes the point that the biggest impediment to any reform comes from the Teachers’ Unions.
They have become so focused on gaining the greatest benefits for their members that they have lost sight of the reason why schools and teachers exist. The Unions fight any reform that gives schools more independence, especially in managing their employees. They resist offering teachers any type of performance related pay and firing those teachers who cannot function adequately. They also oppose efforts to close schools that consistently fail to deliver a decent education and are hostile to reforms that give parents a choice in the schools to which they can send their children. Individually, teachers may be doing their job but as a group they are the greatest obstacle to improving public education in the US.
Here in Belize we have similar problems that no amount of “Education Summits” can solve. The greatest barrier to improving education in Belize turns out to be from those tasked with providing it! The Ministry of Education (MOE) is taking a disciplined and consistent approach to improvement, but instead of being part of the solution those with vested interests are fighting reform every inch of the way to retain the status quo. There are some obvious reforms that no one can logically object to including consolidation of small schools all serving one area to improve efficiency and quality; opening schools in underserved locations; working to improve inadequate schools; developing an equitable system for financing education. Our school system has developed historically as a Church/State system with all the early educational development being provided and funded by various religious denominations.
Over the years government has become more involved; until now government pays almost the entire educational budget for primary education and about 80-90% of secondary education with parents paying most of the balance and School Managements contributing very little in the way of financial resources. Naturally, government needs to ensure that taxpayers’ dollars are spent in the most efficient, equitable manner possible and this is where conflict with managements often arises. Managements are reluctant to yield any control over curricula or staffing and yet government pays almost all the bills.
If managements were paying all the bills, they could not afford the inefficiency of running very small schools, but if someone else is picking up the tab then naturally some consider it in their best interests to have as many schools as possible, no matter how small. Efforts to consolidate small primary schools in an area often meet with resistance from one or more of the managements concerned. This leads to a situation where the costs incurred per student enrolled vary widely at different schools in an area and the quality of education offered also differs considerably.
Secondary school funding is even more inequitable than that for primary schools given that government contributions have developed in a largely ad hoc manner. This has led to some schools receiving vastly more government money per student than others with the schools serving the generally more affluent students receiving the most. The Ministry of Education has recently developed a formula that will regulate these payments so that over the course of five years each secondary school student will receive the same government funding and no school will see its current funding decreased though some school payments will be frozen to give underfunded schools an opportunity to catch up. Some of the managements that were benefitting from the old unfair system are trying to cry foul but they really have no good arguments to put forward.
Perhaps the most fundamental discord between managements and the government is the actual purpose of education and this leads to numerous misunderstandings. A lot of managements are run by religious denominations and therefore their core interest is in furthering the interests of that particular denomination. Hence they give preference to children who are baptized in their church or whose parents attend their church; they employ principals and teachers who are members of their church; the managements are run by members of the church; religion classes are dominated by the teachings of the denomination; rules and regulations for teachers and students are largely determined by church dogma.
Parents do select schools somewhat based on their own religious denomination but most are more concerned with quality than anything else. Government on the other hand is concerned with the quality of secular education and its relevance for the needs of Belize and Belizean students and fair treatment of teachers based on their teaching ability rather than their denominational fitness.
Some teachers like the managements also miss the point that schools are run for the children and parents and not for the convenience of teachers. There are some good schools in Belize and some great teachers but there are also failing schools and appalling teachers.
We do not have time to wait for Superman in Belize. Our children have only one chance to get their education and we must all work together to ensure that we give them the best education that we can for the investment we make.
