More education, less schooling

School districts across the country are running out of money.  Many do not have enough funds to finish the school year.  Their main options seem stark: cut days off the term or cut programs and people.

When superintendent and state legislatures act, no doubt, prudently and pragmatically to terminate school employees, this approach has an obvious logic: since cutting school days would hurt teachers and students (income and learning), downsizing faculty to keep school days only hurts teachers (income, but not learning).  Since beating up on teachers has more political expediency than slashing school days (and risk being seen as against student learning), districts will eliminate jobs in an orderly fashion, from seniority and necessity to temporary and support.

Too bad, since enabling the institution of the school comes with the risk of degrading the purpose of the school, education.  More time in classroom studying more content to learn more skill means little as a concept.  A worthy outcome, true.  Herein lies the trouble, though.  Although schools can scaffold the opportunity for this learning, they can not produce it.  Schools are space of possibility, not quality control centers of excellence.  It falls upon the people within these spaces - teachers, staff, students, leaders, lunch ladies, custodians, everyone - to reach beyond the input/output logicistic of schooling for education to be realized.

Lest I be dismissed as incorrigibly impractical, given the real-politic of educational policies and the physical and social conditions of our schools and student populations, try the following thought experience.  Imagine you have been asked to explain to a visitor from another dimension the purpose for education.  Think for a few moments about what you would tell her.

(Pause)

OK.  Now consider how to explain to her how you would know that you have achieved that purpose.

(Pause)

Can you institutionalize a process to do so without changing either of your answers?

MORE.

The WSJ demonstrates how considerations of education are framing through considerations of schooling.  Education codifies into outcomes ("having the highest proportion of college graduates" "increase the number of students taking AP and college-level courses") that infer substantial education; common sense tells us that such outcomes should mean that students have been well-educated.  Planning for outcomes is exactly the main grist of institutional orders.  Schools collectivize its resources toward that goal, regarding "how" is achieved to a secondary, and manageable concern.  Teachers and students serve the system, which is ordained, indifferent to the people who serve it.

Perhaps you have a different take?