“What happened to our trust in public schools?” was explored as part of the adult speaker series at Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center Thursday, April 27.
Speaker Dr. Jean Donham, a retired University of Northern Iowa professor and librarian, spoke outlining the ways trust in education has waned and focusing on bills advanced this legislative session that are having a dampening effect on the profession.
Donham said the erosion of public trust in education started in 1983, with the release of A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform from the United States National Commission on Excellence in Education.
As more people had been attending college and taking college entrance exams, the overall tests seemed to show declining averages. A later study called the Sandia report refuted the scores were slipping, that subgroups of students were actually improving test scores when you looked at the data in a group to group setting, not just as a whole. Scores had been fairly steady all along for students in that time period as well.
Nation at Risk, however, had placed more emphasis on accountability, and with No Child Left Behind in 2001, Race to the Top in 2009 and the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, student success on testing became where focus shifted in education.
“There’s a lot of pressure for success and the results students receive,” Donham said.
The COVID-19 pandemic had another effect on schools, with many students learning at home.
“Not all students learn well in that type of environment or learning,” Donham said. “When students returned to schools, there was a lot more resistance to mask wearing and vaccination status and the other efforts taken by schools to keep staff and students safe.”
Donham said public schools were started back in the late 1830s. Horace Mann, the secretary of education of Massachusetts, was one of the first founders. At that time, schools were either home based, religious or exclusive.
He proposed the idea of a common school for all children that should be paid for by the public, embrace children of all religious, social and ethnic backgrounds, be staffed by well trained professional teachers and embrace the spirit and methods and disciplines of a free society.
At its core, public education was responsible for understanding civil and democratic government, academic knowledge and preparation for careers, analytical and critical thinking skills essential to navigating today’s information environment.
“Schools even back then were seen as a collective good, focused on all students being prepared for what came after, not on individual success,” Donham said. “If schools could do all these things, the public good was well served.”
Donham said that public schools are also the first chance many students experience people with differences.
“That was something I had to work to overcome later in life,” Donham said. “I went to private schools growing up, and I had little exposure to people who were different than me. I view that isolation was a disadvantage to me.”
One of the effects of that isolation, Donham said, is it is easier to develop a fear of the other from what people have not encountered.
The other portion of COVID-19 that has impacted education was the start of a larger distrust of authorities. Donham said that was also what many of the bills in the legislature have been signaling to educators across the country – that a minority of the public no longer trusts what they do.
Senate File 496, the education bill being worked on at the Iowa legislature, was one of the bills that Donham discussed.
She noted that the transparency provisions of the bill, including teachers having to provide all the resources they may use, will have a chilling effect on education.
“It’s going to eliminate the serendipitous moments teachers have become accustomed to,” Donham said. “Does a teacher discuss something that’s happening in the classroom at that moment with material that wasn’t on an approved list?”
She said the overall effect of the bill is that it undercuts the respect and trust the public has had in professionals. Teachers are also now only worrying about teaching to a test, not engaging with the ideas and principles that may be behind items that comprise the civics tests.
House File 802, which prohibits teachers from teaching divisive topics, is another that she feels has an impact on teachers.
This is part of a wave of bills that are hitting legislatures across the country that focus on issues that can’t be taught, many of which are targeted on issues of race, gender, American history and LGBQTIA+ identities.
“It has a chilling effect on what can be discussed as part of education,” Donham said. “There was an example from students in Johnston who said there was a different atmosphere in schools after 802 was passed, as teachers got very concerned what they could discuss, and were afraid to discuss things like the 3/5 compromise.”
Donham said that polling of Americans shows a complete contradiction to these bills, with more than 72 percent having confidence in their own public schools, and the majority feeling public schools are still good.
Donham worked for many years as a college librarian and library media specialist for a number of schools. She said that librarians work to make sure there is something for everyone in their collections.
Curation of library materials is more involved than just shopping for a book, especially in school libraries. That vetting process might focus on the quality of the material, the age appropriateness, emotional development, reader’s ability and learning style to begin with, and expand to make sure there are differing viewpoints and multiple perspectives.
Since 2016, every school in the state has had to have a reconsideration committee who evaluates if a book that is challenged should be allowed. Those committees are comprised of two teachers, two parents in the district and potentially two students.
“The rule is that there should not be more educators than there are community members on the committee, as this is a chance for the community to express its views on the material and if it adheres to local values,” Donham said.
That is why she was opposed to the portion of Senate File 496 that was eventually struck down, which would have allowed any book that was challenged in any part of the state to be banned across the entire state.
“It would have taken away the local standard and control that the review process established,” Donham said.
Challenges to books have been drastically on the rise across the country. In 2020, a total of 223 books were challenged the entire year. In 2022, that number has risen to 2,571.
And while bills like these are happening in Iowa and across the country, they are already having an impact on teaching as a profession, Donham said.
A recent poll of teachers said 55 percent had planned to leave teaching sooner than planned, citing the lack of community support.
That is being compounded by the fact since 2010, enrollment for teaching at colleges is down by 33 percent.
“We’re going to be facing a loss of expertise as more and more teachers leave this profession,” Donham said.
One statistic Donham cited was that in polling done in 2008, 62 percent of teachers were very satisfied with their job. That was down to 12 percent in 2022.
Donham said that worries her, as it will have an effect on licensure, mentorship and an erosion of public schools, as well as a narrowing of curriculum and learning opportunities for students.
She urged people who were worried about this issue to run for their local school board, write to legislators in support of schools, encourage communication between parents and teachers and schools and express support for teachers.