The Best Posts Discussing Arrogance & School Reform
Diane Ravitch wrote a great piece today in Education Week titled “Why Won’t ‘Reformers’ Listen?”.She ends with a quote from the late President of the University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, who said “”The only political dogma in America is that discussion leads to progress, that every man is entitled to his own opinions, and that we have to learn to live with those whose opinions differ from our own. After all, they may turn out to be right.”
Listening to those with a different perspective and recognizing that no one has a monopoly on the truth is an important element of effective community organizing. In the high-stakes world of school reform and education, clearly advocates on all sides, including me, have been guilty of not being the greatest listeners at times.
However, it seems pretty clear to me that over the years many who have pushed for issues like using standardized test results as the main measure of teacher effectiveness; trying to dramatically expand the role of charters from being teaching and learning “labs” to using them as weapons to attack public education; and wanting public schools to act more and more like “businesses,” have tended to be the ones most self-righteous
