Against Tribalism in the Education Reform Debate
There are many flaws with the current education reform debate, and many flaws with the education system status quo. I started this blog off arguing that there are no silver bullets in education reform, and that’s the truth. There really aren’t any. Nor are there clear villains or superheroes. The path forward is lost in fog and uncertainty.
Despite this acknowledgment, I took a decidedly partisan approach to school reform over the past few months. Instead of approaching the education reform debate as a skeptic, I have approached it as an advocate against the modern reform movement itself and all that entails. I largely ignored the institutional problems with the status quo, and I gave the teachers’ unions a free pass. As I wrote from a position much further to the left of my usual writing, I felt more and more like a conservative standing athwart history shouting “Stop!”
This was a mistake. To be a real critic of the education system and the trendy reforms of the day, one has to abandon, to whatever degree possible, tribalism. One cannot simply critique reformers like Michelle Rhee, or foundations like Gates or Broad, and then ignore the very real problems with the teacher’s unions. Or ignore the