RE-OPENING SCHOOLS IN IRAQ

 

Author Pam Riley was the first national charter school expert speaking in New Hampshire  (mid-1990s) and currently is safe at home in California, directing an enterprising program connecting US high schools to schools in Iraq.

 

When Sue Hollins* invited me to New Hampshire to talk about California’s charter school experience, I was a senior education policy fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. I had written extensively on the independent public charter school idea and school choice. California, then and now, was a leader among states with charter school laws.

 

Then, after many years of research and advocating for charter schools (I was a founder of the California Network of Charter Schools), parents, community members, and teachers in my local school district asked me to help start a charter school. I leapt at the opportunity. After all, I thought, my background in education reform surely had prepared me.

 

Yet opening the Towers Preparatory Charter School was one of the most difficult challenges of my career. Overcoming initial resistance from a school board that didn’t want us and from a City Council that didn’t want to give a zoning permit, obtaining start-up funds, and myriad obstacles new enterprises face--all were hurdles to jump. I finally  understood the complexities charter pioneers and founders confront, whether in California or New Hampshire.

 

My next challenge in education was opening (or re-opening) schools in a war-torn country. In December 2003 I became U.S. advisor to Iraq’s Ministry of Education. Strapped into a parachute seat, I was flown into Baghdad in a C130 military transport plane, with stomach-turning air maneuvers to avoid mortar and rocket attacks. I immediately began 14-hour work days, 7 days a week, in one of the most remarkable missions the U.S. has undertaken since reconstruction of post-World War II Europe.

 

The goal: completely rebuilding Iraq’s education system. And I worked in enormously difficult conditions for eight months side by side with a team of Iraq education ministry officials and educators, U.S. foreign-service officials, and USAID workers. To understand this assignment’s difficulty, I must explain public education in Iraq:

 

  • There are approximately 6 million students, K-12 (although kindergarten is rarely offered in Iraq), and 300,000 teachers and administrators. Education is mandatory only through the 6th grade. Students who do not pass the mandatory national exit exam in 6th grade can progress to a vocational track. However, vocational education in Iraq is extraordinarily antiquated and few students elect that option.

 

  • While there is some anecdotal evidence that girls are under-enrolled in schools (especially in rural regions), no empirical data exists to support that claim (no census has been held for years). However, schools are segregated by gender; there are separate schools, especially beginning in 7th grade, for boys and girls. Areas that cannot afford separate schools create different gender locations within classrooms, with boys sitting one side of a classroom & girls on the other.

 

  • Religion is taught in public schools. Under the previous regime, only the Sunni interpretation of the Koran was taught. Christian or students from non-Islam religions were not required to attend religion classes. If 20 Christian students attended one school, a Christian religion class was offered.

 

  • The previous regime under Saddam Hussein siphoned education funds to pay for military expenditures and other priorities. Teachers received on average a mere $5 a month. When the regime fell, approximately 80% of the nation’s 15,000 school buildings needed rehabilitation and lacked basic sanitary conditions.

 

  • Saddam Hussein also politicized the schools, influencing everything from curriculum to teaching and administrative staff, to admission policies.

 

  • Teachers have received little training. Teaching in Iraq relies heavily on government produced textbooks and is characterized by “memorization without understanding.” There are very few school libraries and no school labs. Effective lesson plans that rely on student discussion or interaction between teacher and student or among students are rare.

 

The U.S. and its coalition allies have already accomplished much. One of the most remarkable achievements was how quickly schools opened after the end of the war in April 2003.

 

  • Within 4 weeks most schools were opened (very few were actually damaged in the war itself) and students were preparing for their final exams. The national exams were held in all regions of Iraq with very little delay or disruption (national exams at all levels, but especially the exit exams at 6th, 9th, and 12th grades, are high-stakes exams and Iraqis respect them).

 

  • Teacher salaries were raised from $5 month to a starting salary of $60 and an average of $300 month.

 

  • A new Minister of Education was appointed who quickly assembled a new senior staff. 12,000 teachers and administrators who had been members of the now-banned Ba’ath Party were fired.

 

  • USAID has rehabilitated more than 2,500 schools and trained 33,000 high school teachers in effective and modern classroom management.

 

  • UNICEF and USAID distributed school supplies to more than 5 million students and reprinted textbooks (after removing much of the propaganda from the previous regime).

 

  • The U.S. Congress has allocated $70 million to rehabilitate 1,000 additional schools and the World Bank followed by allocating $60 million more. These funds set the stage for school reconstruction for the next three years.

 

  • The U.S. and other donor nations have pledged another approximate $150 million for textbook revision, teacher training, and other non-construction projects.

 

  • The Ministry of Education has revised curriculum in the areas of civic education, history, and religion and appointed a new national curriculum commission to revise curriculum in all subject areas.

 

Despite these early accomplishments, much more still needs to be done. Poor security conditions are hampering school reconstruction efforts in many regions. Iraq needs to spend more of its national budget on education (right now education expenses amount to less than 5%, compared to say, California’s budget of which almost 40% is spent on education). Per pupil expenditures in Iraq are the lowest in the Middle East. But until a new government that will be accountable to students and parents is elected, officials are unlikely to change the status quo.

 

The most serious obstacle to education reform in Iraq is an overly-bureaucratic system and a work force that has been isolated for thirty years. Teachers need to be trained in a variety of teaching strategies to ensure that all students learn. The nation’s system needs to be decentralized so that the system can be held accountable for performance. There are no school boards, much less charter or private schools, in Iraq.

 

Those of us in the charter school movement know how difficult it is to develop an effective charter school when the authorizing system becomes too bureaucratic. I return from Iraq fully understanding how every layer of administrative paperwork and bureaucracy can interfere with the flow of a quality school.

 

I believe charter schools and options for choice are needed everywhere. Teachers and students in Iraq face that uphill battle every day. At all levels—students, teachers, boards, policy makers—we are challenged to think outside the structures we’ve created over time and find ever-better school models and options.  One Iraqi teacher expressed this so well in applying for a U.S. teacher training grant:

 

“I have taught in many schools in Iraq. I have been inspired by my students’ intelligence. But the system has covered their brains with an iron cover. I have tried with all my might to open a small hole in that cover. Now I need your (U.S.) help to give me your experience and your training, your scientific methods. I have nothing to bring with me but my luggage full of books and a thirst for new knowledge to bring back to my tired country.”

 

I would welcome helping connect New Hampshire high school to Iraqi high schools. Students there do know English and through my new partners program we will be hiring Iraqi coordinators (who speak English) to facilitate translations, e-mail, and internet support. Our emphasis is facilitating school to school, teacher to teacher, and classroom to classroom communications. Our goals are to help America schools and students develop a broader international understanding and provide opportunities for Iraqi students to speak and write in English. Our program will start Fall 2004 (up to 20 US and Iraqi high schools) but we will rapidly expand.

 

Pam_riley@sbcglobal.net.

www.spiritofamerica.net

Spirit of America

86 Arlington Ave, Kensington CA 94707

510-526-2300; 510-919-4487 (cell); 510-528-8797 (fax)

 

*Pam Riley’s Connection to New Hampshire.  Immediately after passage of the Chapter 194-B, New Hampshire’s charter school and open enrollment law, Susan Hollins started the New Hampshire Charter School Resource Center, providing statewide technical assistance and seminars to explain the charter school concept. Emily Mead, then President and founder of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, joined this effort. During the 1990s, Susan and Emily jointly sponsored the only programs in New Hampshire explaining charter schools, bringing in leaders from California, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona, Delaware, Rhode Island, etc., to discuss model charter school successes across the nation. Susan has since become a Board member of Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a superintendent, and a senior consultant in charter school design & management. Emily Mead, still a vital Josiah Bartlett Center board member, has decided to found one of New Hampshire’s first charter schools—a museum-sponsored, college-affiliated elementary school in the Upper Valley.