A Certain Lack of Controversy
National-Louis hosted another colloquy last night on Navy Pier. Luminaries included the great Deb Meier, Bill Ayers, Sonia Nieto, and Harold Levey. There were a number of other educators on stage, including Elizabeth Kirby, the principal of Kenwood Academy High School here in Chicago, and Ky Adderley, who who founded and runs a KIPP charter school in Brooklyn. There were a couple of young teachers on the stage as well.
One hates to be critical, but I'm pronouncing the evening a bust. The big controversial statements were left sitting on the table, leaving what I believe to be a false sense of kumbaya. Either that, or I'm reading the whole thing incorrectly and there is indeed a sense of kumbaya among people with very different approaches to public education. I'm going to have to think about it for a day. I think Mike Klonsky summed it up best when he stood up at the end of the event and listed a few of the atrocities that are actually happening in the name of reform and then lamented how someone like Arne Duncan wasn't there to defend those things.
It may very well be that most of the people working on education right now are largely in agreement about what's
One hates to be critical, but I'm pronouncing the evening a bust. The big controversial statements were left sitting on the table, leaving what I believe to be a false sense of kumbaya. Either that, or I'm reading the whole thing incorrectly and there is indeed a sense of kumbaya among people with very different approaches to public education. I'm going to have to think about it for a day. I think Mike Klonsky summed it up best when he stood up at the end of the event and listed a few of the atrocities that are actually happening in the name of reform and then lamented how someone like Arne Duncan wasn't there to defend those things.
It may very well be that most of the people working on education right now are largely in agreement about what's
