Are you ready for a School War in the Flat World?

Some, if not most progressive educators agree that we are entering critical times that call for fundamental changes in how we teach, learn and lead. For that reason, it is imperative that our educational leaders and policy makers learn from the past, pay close attention to the current trends and try to predict what the future will bring. Good sources of information and ideas that make this possible are books written by insightful researchers such as Thomas Friedman who wrote “The World is Flat” and Diana Ravitch, the author of “The Great School Wars”. Themes that emerge from both works give us clear indications of what urban school leaders need to become in order to effectively serve our communities and what way of thinking is necessary to lead successful urban schools in the future. The implications for the urban school leaders are not only clear but they also raise a sense of urgency as to how soon these transformations will need to take place.

In “The Great School Wars”, Diana Ravitch walks us through the history of the New York City public schools since the events leading to the passing of the Maclay bill on April 8, 1842. On that day, “For the first time in its history, New York City would have a school system that was directly controlled by the people and entirely financed from the public treasury.”(Ravitch p.76). The book continues until the reorganization of the schools guaranteed by the “New Law” passed on April 30, 1969 and ends with describing the aftermath of what the author refers to as the “Forth School War”.

Over the years, The New York public schools went through many transformations. These transformations were mainly driven by the shifts of the population of the city, changes in economy and the political climate of the time. Whether it was “denying [public] funds to religious schools” (p.79), improving physical conditions, improving teaching quality, providing upward mobility for recent immigrants or dealing with racisms, the powers that be, as well as the general public often succumbed to the temptation to use either centralization or local school control to improve the system. This constant shift which Ravitch appropriately refers to as “a pendulum movement” (p.401), is one of the themes that has been occurring and re-occurring even beyond the scope of the book, up to the most recent districts-to-regions-back-to-districts shift of the most current administration of the New York City public schools. Although, according to the author, “one of the persistent ironies of reform is the impossibility of predicting the full consequences of change”(p.400), one prediction can safely be made. Neither centralization nor local control can solve problems of the school system, because neither of them provided real solutions in the past (p.401). Extensive reforms instituted by William Henry Maxwell and Nicolas Murray Butler in 1980s can serve as illustrations of this phenomenon. These reformers succeeded in their efforts to centralize the system in order put it in the hands of experts rather than politicians. The end result of their efforts was a system that was highly bureaucratized and removed from the people for which its creators “would later become targets of public school critics” (p.186). These criticisms and growing disillusions of progressive reformers eventually sparked urgency for more reforms that would give the public more control over the schools.

Another theme that runs throughout the book is the ever-evolving concept of what defines the society that public schools should serve. Since “The public school operates on behalf of the community” (Ravitch, p.402), this issue was and still is very essential in making system-wide decisions if they are to benefit our schools and positively impact our society. The needs of our schools were quite different before and after the first waves of Irish immigrants arrived at the New York harbor. When eastern Europeans became the fastest growing immigrant group in the city, the public schools were seen as a way to succeed in the new world by the way of learning the language, crafts and professions. With the arrival of African Americans from the South, the need for Americanization was replaced by the need for racial integration and when a large number of Puerto Ricans arrived, the school system faced yet more new challenges. The future changes to our system will be effective only if we clearly define, and if necessary, constantly-revise the definition of the community our schools ought to serve.

One side of this issue is quite obvious. The New York City schools are located in one of the most diverse places in the world and therefore must acknowledge this diversity by learning about and from the many cultures represented here. At the same time, since different areas are often dominated by specific ethnic groups, schools should also reflect those regional differences. The other, more complicated side of this issue connects directly to what Thomas Friedman refers to as Globalization 3.0 (Friedman p.10) and how this concept redefines what type of community our schools must serve in order to prepare our students for the future.

According to Friedman, we have entered Globalization 3.0 which “is empowering individuals” (p.10) and supplies “the newfound power for individuals to collaborate and compete globally.” (p.10). While students in other countries already take full advantage of this opportunity, many American students don’t. To illustrate changes that already took place, Friedman reflects on what his mother was telling him when he was growing up, which was: “Tom, finish your dinner-people in China and India are starving” and shares new advice for his own children, and we can assume for all of us, which is to finish our homework because people in those countries are starving for our jobs. (p.237). One implication is that we must immediately start thinking of our schools as serving the global community as much as serving the local communities in order to give our students and teachers more opportunities “to compete and collaborate globally” and ultimately succeed in the “Flat World” where competition and collaboration know no geographical or cultural boundaries. I think the phrase “our homework” is also symbolic of what we as urban leaders need to do and how much we must learn in order to serve our communities in the future.

Another theme in Friedman’s work is the complexity of Globalization 3.0 and a grim reality of our students’ readiness for success in the Flat World.

"Every law of economics tells us that if we connect all the knowledge pools
in the world, and promote greater and greater trade and integration, the
global pie will grow wider and more complex. And if America, or any other
country, nurtures a labor force that is increasingly made up of men and
women who are special, specialized, or constantly adopting to the
higher-value-added jobs, it will grab its slice of that growing pie. But we
will have to work at it." (p.248)
Optimistically, he claims that “There are plenty of jobs out there in the flat world for people with the knowledge and ideas to seize them.” (p.237) and provides practical advice by saying that “To survive, you want to be specialized, anchored and most of all you actually want to become really adaptable.” (p.239). Friedman poses an essential question “But have we really been investing in our future and preparing our children the way we need to for the race ahead? He answers this question, so important to urban school leaders, and without hesitation by stating “The answer is no.” (p. 249).

The implications for urban school leadership seem very clear. We need to resist the urge to use either centralization or local control to solve our problems as we often tried and failed in the past. We need to look beyond approaches that appeal to politicians and to the uninformed and create schools systems that are inspired by current research. Also, we should focus on building consensus on how we define the term “community” and what must take place among our leaders, teachers and students in order to serve its needs. We need to admit that we are now living in the ever-changing global economy which requires different skills than what made us successful in the past. And, since we are not “preparing our children the way we need to for the race ahead” (Friedman, p.249), we need to change the way we teach, lead and learn in order to prepare our students, parents and teachers to be successful in the future. If we really believe Friedman that “In a flatter world, you don’t really want to be mediocre” (p.236), we must take drastic steps to lead our schools away from mediocrity and towards excellence with the speed appropriate for the “exponential times” in which we live (Kurtzman, 2009). One question comes to mind.

What will be the next great school war, who will be fighting it and what weapons will be used to win it?

Reference List

Kurtzman, Wayne (2009, May 14). We Live In Exponential Times. Message posted at http://mediabullseye.com/mb/2009/05/we-live-in-exponential-times.html

Ravitch, Diane (2000). The great school wars: A history of the New York City public schools. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press.

Thomas, L. Friedman, (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century.New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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Jacek Polubiec was born and raised in Powisle, a small picturesque neighborhood near downtown Warsaw, Poland. Working on archeological excavations in his youth invigorated his interest in higher education after years under very traditional, teacher-centered school system. Self-driven and taught, he applied and was accepted to the Institute of Archeology, one of the most elite departments of Warsaw University, where he completed three semesters of studies. Upon coming to the United States, Jacek started a family and pursued his passion for music. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from City College and M.A. in Jazz Performance from Queens College. He held many roles in the music world: jazz guitarist, band leader, composer and teacher. His satisfaction from seeing adults and children learn inspired him to work with the New York City Board of Education. There he has worked as a music teacher, a Project ARTS Coordinator, and after graduating from the Principals Institute at Bank Street College, an Assistant Principal—a position he has served in for the past 7 years. Jacek feels strongly about bringing progressive thinking and innovative approaches to teaching and educational leadership. He is a transformational leader passionate about emotional intelligence, teacher and student leadership, collaboration and technology. He is currently pursuing doctoral degree in Urban School Leadership at Fordham University. He is a proud father of two girls ages 15 and 20. When he is not working or studying, he enjoys surf fishing, camping, photography, cooking and salsa dancing.